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FIRST 

Free Lutheran Diet 

IN AMERICA. 



PHILADELPHIA. DECEMBER 27-28, 1877. 



THE ESSAYS, DEBATES 



AND 



nLOOEEiDiisra-s. 






PHILADELPHIA 

J. FREDERICK SMITH, PUBLISHER, 

42 NORTH NINTH STREET. 

1878. 



^1% 



\ 



\ 



^ 



COPYRIGHT 

By J. FREDERICK SMITH, 



THB UftEAftYi 
OF COKO&fiSS 
WASHINGTON j 



PRESS OF 

INQUIRER P. & P. CO. 

LANCASTER, PA. 



PREFACE. 



After the adjournment of the Diet, the secretaries divided the 
work assigned between them, Dr. Baum undertaking to secure a 
publisher, and the undersigned to collect the essays and remarks, 
and edit the book. The call (p. 10) specified as one of the rules 
of the Diet, that a synopsis of each speech in the discussion be 
furnished for publication. It was only, however, by a great deal ol 
correspondence and delay, that the remarks here published were 
secured, with a very few exceptions, from the speakers themselves. 
Considerable delay has resulted also from the reading of the proof 
of each essay by its author. 

The book, as it now appears, we believe, will be found by those 
who were present at the Diet, to faithfully reproduce everything of 
essential importance in its proceedings. We have endeavored, by 
means of a full table of contents and indexes, to render its many 
items of value readily accessible. 

In addition to Dr. Baum, special acknowledgments are due Drs. 
Seiss, Krauth, Diehl and Valentine, for important services and 
suggestions connected with the editing of the volume. 

H. E. JACOBS. 

Gettysburg, March 23d, 1878. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE. 

Call for the Diet 9 

Members of Diet 1 1 

Opening Remarks by Dr. Morris 13 

First Paper : " The Augsburg Confession and the Thirty-Nine Articles 

of the Anglican Church," by Rev. J. G. Morris, D. D., LL. D. . 15 
Second Paper : " The Relations of the Lutheran Church to the Denom- 
inations around us," by Rev. C. P.. Krauth, D. D., LL. D 27 

Remarks of Rev. D. P. Rosenmiller 70 

C. W. Schaeffer, D. D 70 

F. W. Conrad, D. D 72 

J. A. Brown, D. D 73 

C. P. Krauth, D. D., LL. D , . . . 77 

Third Paper: "The Four General Bodies of the Lutheran Church in 
the United States : Wherein they agree, and wherein they might 

harmoniously cooperate," by Rev. J. A. Brown, D. D 80 

Remarks of Rev. D. P. Rosenmiller 96 

W.J. Mann, D.D 96,98 

" " Prof. V. L. Conrad 97, 99 

F. W. Conrad, D.D 99 

A. C. Wedekind, D. D 101 

" " R. A. Fink, D. D. 102 

" " W.S.Emery.. 103 

J. A. Brown, D.D 104 

Fourth Paper : " The History and Progress of the Lutheran Church in 

the United States," by Rev. H. E. Jacobs, D. D 107 

Remarks of Rev. F. W. Conrad, D. D 137 

" " J. A. Brown, D. D 139 

" C. P. Krauth, D. D., LL. D 141 

" " D. P. Rosenmiller 144 

Fifth Paper: "Education in the Lutheran Church in the United 

States," by Rev. M. Valentine, D.D 145 

Remarks of Rev. C. A. Stork, D. D 160 

J. F. Reinmund, D. D 163 

A. Spaeth, D.D 163 

Note from M. Valentine, D.D 164 

Sixth Paper : " The interests of the Lutheran Church in America as af- 
fected by Diversities of Language," by D. Luther, M. D 165 

(vii) 



Ylll CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Remarks of Rev. L. E. Albert, D. D 171 

" " J. K. Plitt 172 

J. B. Rath 172 

" J. Kohler 174 

" " W. J. Mann, D. D 176 

" " A. Spaeth, D. D 176 

" D. Luther, M. D 177 

Seventh Paper : " Misunderstandings and Misrepresentations of the 

Lutheran Church," by Rev. J. A. Seiss, D. D 180 

Remarks of Rev. C. W. Shaeffer, D. D 194 

J. A. Brown, D. D 195 

C. P. Krauth, D. D., LL. D 199 

" " J. A. Seiss, D. D 204 

Eighth Paper: "The Characteristics of the Augsburg Confession," by 

Rev. F. W. Conrad, D. D 206 

Remarks of Rev. C. P. Krauth, D. D., LL. D 233 

" J. A. Brown, D. D 237 

Note of Rev. C. P. Krauth, D. D., LL. D 238 

Ninth Paper: "True and False Spirituality in the Lutheran Church," 

by Rev. E. Greenwald, D.D 243 

Tenth Paper : "Liturgical Forms in Worship," by Rev. C. A. Stork, D.D. 257 

Remarks of Rev. L. E. Albert, D. D 272 

F. W. Conrad, D. D -.272 

" J. A. Brown, D. D 274 

Eleventh Paper : " Theses on the Lutheranism of the Fathers of the 

Church in this Country," by Rev. W. J. Mann, D. D 276 

Remarks of Rev. J. G. Morris, D. D., LL. D 283, 284 

" " W. J. Mann, D. D 284 

'' J. A. Brown, D.D 284, 285 

C. P. Krauth, D. D., LL. D 285,289 

-* " J. A. Seiss, D.D 286 

C. F. Welden 288 

Twelfth Paper : " The Divine and Human Factors in the Call to the 
Ministerial Office, according to the Older Lutheran Authorities, 

by Rev. G. Diehl, D.D 292 

Remarks of Rev. N. M. Price 309 

" " W. J. Morris, D. D 309,312 

" " J. A. Brown, D. D 309,312 

F. W. Conrad, D. D 310 

Thirteenth Paper : " The Educational and Sacramental Ideas of the 
Lutheran Church/m relation to Practical Piety," by Rev. A. C. 

Wedekind, D.D 

Closing Remarks of Rev. J. A. Seiss, D. D 331 

Closing Resolutions 333 

Closing Remarks of Rev. F. W. Conrad, D. D 334 

Adjournment ...... . 335 



PROCEEDINGS. 



T 



he following call had for some weeks been circulated through 
the Church papers: 



A LUTHERAN CHURCH DIET. 

A Free Diet of the Lutheran Church, to discuss living subjects of general 
worth and importance to all Lutherans, has been arranged to be held in St. 
Matthew's church (Dr. Baum's), in Philadelphia, beginning at 10 A. M. on 
Thursday, December 27th, 1877, to be in session several days. 

The chief business of this Diet will be the reading of essays on given topics 
by men engaged for the purpose, and the free discussion of the subject of each 
essay after its presentation. The essayists engaged, and with whom is the re 
sponsibility for the calling and character of this Diet, are : 

1. Rev. J. G. Morris, D. D., LL. D., of Baltimore, Md. Subject: "The 
Augsburg Confession the Source of the Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of 
England, and incidentally of all other Protestant Confessions." 

2. Rev. Prof. C. P. Krauth, D. D., LL. D., of Philadelphia, Pa. Subject : 
" The Relations of the Lutheran Church to Denominations around us." 

3. Rev. Prof. J. A. Brown, D. D., of Gettysburg, Pa. Subject: " The Four 
General Bodies of the Lutheran Church in the United States; wherein they 
agree, and wherein they might harmoniously co-operate." 

4. Rev. Prof. H. E. Jacobs, D. D., of Gettysburg, Pa. Subject: "The 
History and Progress of the Lutheran Church in the United States." 

5. Rev. Prof. M. Valentine, D. D., of Gettysburg, Pa. Subject: "Edu- 
cation in the Lutheran Church in the United States." 

6. Rev. Prof. S. A. Repass, D. D , of Salem, Va. Subject: "The Con- 
servatism of the Lutheran Church in the United States." 

7. Rev. J. A. Seiss, D. D., of Philadelphia, Pa. Subject: "The Misun- 
derstandings and Misrepresentations of the Lutheran Church." 

8. Rev. F. W. Conrad, D. D., of Philadelphia, Pa. Subject: The Charac- 
teristics of the Augsburg Confession." 

9. Rev. E. Greenwald, D. D., of Lancaster, Pa. Subject: "False and 
True Spiritualism." 

(9) 



IO FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

10. Rev. C. A. Stork, D. D., of Baltimore, Md. Subject : " Liturgical 
Forms in Worship." 

11. Rev. G. F. Krotet., D. D., of New York, N. Y. Subject : "The Pol- 
ity of the Lutheran Church as declared in the Confessions." 

12. Rev. A. C. Wedekind, D. D., of New York, N. Y. Subject : "The 
Educational and Sacramental Ideas of the Lutheran Church in Relation to 
Practical Piety." 

13. Rev. Prof. W. J. Mann, D. D., of Philadelphia, Pa. Subject : " Theses 
on the Lutheranism of the Fathers of our Church in this Country." 

14. Rev. G. Diehl., D. D., of Frederick, Md. Subject : " The Divine and 
Human Factors in the Call to the Ministry, as viewed by Lutheran Theolo- 
gians." 

All Lutherans, clerical and lay, without respect to synodical connections, 
are invited to seats and membership in this Diet, with the privilege of partici- 
pation in the discussions. 

The Rev. Dr. Morris will preside, and the Rev. Drs. Jacobs and Baum will 
act as secretaries. 

No essay is to exceed forty-five minutes in length, and no speech in the gen- 
eral discussion shall exceed ten minutes, and the essayist shall always have the 
right to make the closing speech on the subject presented by him. 

No subjects will be discussed other than those of the essays ; and no vote 
will be taken on any of the subjects considered. 

No essay will be received which has already appeared in print, and the man- 
uscript of each essay is to be furnished for publication ; also a synopsis of each 
speech in the discussion. 

The peculiar difficulties of the situation, and the hazardous uncertainty of 
calling an unorganized promiscuous convention, have induced the determina- 
tion of all the arrangements in advance, as above given, and no proposed 
changes for this Diet will be entertained. If others should follow it, the method 
of procedure may be according to what is thought best after the experience in 
this case. 

Though all these things have been, as only they could be, privately arranged, 
here is every reason to believe that there will be a general interest in what is 
thus proposed, and that our ministers and laymen will heartily second what has 
been done, and favor the Diet with their presence and participation. 

In response to this call, a number of members of the Lutheran 
church, assembled in St. Matthew's Evangelical Lutheran church, 
corner of Broad and Mount Vernon streets, Philadelphia, Rev. W. 



FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 



I I 



M. Baum, D. D., pastor, on Thursday, December 27th, 1877, at 
10 o'clock A. M. Among those present during the sessions of the 
Diet were the following: 



ministers. 



Rev. C. S. Albert, 
" L. E. Albert, D. D., 
" J. C. Baum, 
" W. M. Baum, D. D., 
" J. A. Baumann, 
" J. F. Bayer, 
" J. L. Becker, 
" F. P. Bender, 
" F. Benedict, 
" H. M. Bickel, 
" T. C. Billheimer, 
" S. R. Boyer, 
" J. A. Brown, D. D., 
" E. S. Brownmiller, 
" D. L. Coleman, 
" B. B. Collins, 
" H. S. Cook, 
" F. W. Conrad, D. D., 
" V. L. Conrad, 
" C. J. Cooper, 
« John Croll, 
" G. Diehl, D. D., 
" J. F. Diener, 
" J. R. Dimm, 
" J. C. Dizinger, 

" T. W. Dosh, D. D., 
" W. H. Dunbar, 
" O. F. Ebert, 

" W. S. Emery, 

" I. N. S. Erb, 
" W. P. Evans, 

" R. A. Fink, D. D., 

" S. A. K. Francis, 

" W. S. Freas, 

« G. W. Frederick, 

" W. K. Frick, 

" J. H. Fritz, 

" Z. H. Gable, 

" D. H. Geissinger, 

" H. Grahn, 

" J. R. Groff, 



Rev. L. Groh, 

« J. B. Haskell, 

" T. Heilig, 

" L. M. Heilman, 

« S. S. Henry, 

" A. Hiller, 

** C. J. Hirzel, 

" E. Huber, 

" F. K. Huntzinger, 

" H. E. Jacobs, D. D., 

" F. A. Kaehler, 

" F. C. C. Kaehler, 

« C. L. Keedy, M. D., 

" D. K. Kepner, 

" F. Klinefelter, 

" C. Koerner, 

" J. Kohler, 

«' C. P. Krauth, D. D., LL.D. 

" J. A. Kunkelman, 

" C. E. Lindberg, 

" W. J. Mann, D. D., 

" H. W. McKnight, 

" G. F. Miller, 

" M. R. Minnich, 

M J. G. Morris, D. D., LL. D. 

" F. A. Muhlenberg, D. D., 

" W. H. Myers, 

" George Neff, 

" J. Nickum, 

" S. Palmer, 

« J. K. Plitt, 

" N. M. Price, 

« J. B. Rath, 

" J. F. Reinmund, D. D., 

" J. S. Renninger, 

" Prof. M. H. Richards, 

" D. P. Rosenmiller, 

" J. W. Rumple, 

" B. Sadtler, D. D., 

« C. W. SchaerFer.D.D.. 

» O. Schroeder, 



12 



FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 



Rev. A. Schulthes, 

" M. Sheeleigh, 

" J. A. Seiss, D. D., 

" A. Spaeth, D. D., 

« W. H. Steck, 

" C. A. Stork, D. D., 

" H. B. Strohdach, 

" A. Z. Thomas, 

" B. W. Tomlinson, 

" J.Q.Upp, 

STUDENTS OF THEOLOGY 



Rev. M. Valentine, D.D., 

" O. F. Waage, 

" A. C. Wedekind, D. D. 

" A. J. Weddel, 

" R. F. Weidner, 

" C. F. Welden, 

" A. M. Whetstone, 

" F. Wischan, 

" M. L. Young. 



J. W. Albrecht, 
H. G. Artman, 
W. M. Baum, Jr., 

E. Cassidy, 
H. P. Clymer, 
O. H. Hemsath, 
J. H. Kline, 

J. S. Koiner, 

Charles Baum, M. D., 

F. V. Beisel, 
F. W. Bennett, 
J. P. Berlin, 
H. S. Bonar, 

Prof. E. S. Breidenbaugh, 

Martin Buehler, 

F. Byerly, 

E. H. Delk, 

J. R. Eby, 

M. E. Eyler, 

E. J. Frank, 

H. E. Goodman, M. D., 

S. Gerhard, 

J. E. Graeff, 

D. K. Grim, 
J. E. Heyl, 
J. K. Heyl, 
Wm. E. Heyl, 
L. L. Houpt, 

E. M. Heilig, 
N. Jacoby, 

J. P. Keller, M. D., 
P. P. Keller, 
W. F. Koiner, 
E. F. Lott, 



LAYMEN. 



E. G. Lund, 

F. P. Manhart, 
A. B. Markley, 
T. B. Roth, 
M. Schaible, 

C. F. Tiemann, 
H. B. Wile. 



D. Luther, M. D., 
G. W. Martin, 

J. W. Miller, 

R. B. Miller, 

T. J. Miller, 

W. J. Miller, 

W. F. Muhlenberg,M. D., 

G. P. Ockershausen, 

J. F. Rau, 

Prof. S. P. Sadtler, Ph.D., 

F. Schaack, 

W. G. Schaeffer, 

P. M. Schiedt, M. D., 

E. G. Smyser, 
C. A. Snyder, 

W. H. Staake, Esq., 
W. E. Stahler, 
L. K. Stein, M. D„ 
P. C. Stockhauser, 
C. P. Suesserott, 
E. B. Weaver, 

G. A. Weisel, 
Henry Wile, 
L. G. Wile, 

J. N. Wunderlich, 
J. B. Zimmerle. 



FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 1 3 

The President, Rev. J. G. Morris, D. D., LL.D., of Baltimore, 
Md. , opened the session with prayer. 

He then made certain statements concerning the purposes con- 
templated in the call, as follows: 

REMARKS OF DR. MORRIS AT THE OPENING OF THE DIET. 

We meet to-day, brethren, under unusual and very interesting 
circumstances ; it is not as a Synod, nor an ecclesiastical board, nor 
a local Conference, in all of which we have all heretofore served, but 
as a free Diet for the first time in the history of our Church in 
this country. We are not the delegates of any Church Association, 
nor are we the selected representatives of any constituency. Every 
Lutheran minister and layman has equal rights here, and every one 
is at liberty to express his sentiments upon the papers that shall be 
read. 

It was thought that we who without presumption claim to be the 
mother church of Protestantism, should occasionally come together 
in large numbers and fraternally talk of the various distinguishing 
features of our Communion, not so much with the design of harmon- 
izing unessential differences upon disputed points ; not to ascertain 
the opinions of our learned divines on various doctrines, for those 
we already know ; not to disturb any existing associations by at- 
tempting to merge them into one, but to demonstrate our position 
as a people in the great family of churches around us — to exhibit 
the great basis of our Lutheran faith — to make known to others the 
scriptural foundation on which our venerable Church rests — to bring 
prominently before the public our history and the men who in past 
times have achieved great triumphs for us in the pulpit, the profes- 
sor's chair, and the author's study, and to incite our own ministers 
and people to the further investigation of these and allied sub- 
jects. 

I have no doubt that these and other good results, theological, 
literary, ecclesiastical and social, will flow from the proceedings upon 
which we enter this day. 

The difficulties of bringing this meeting into existence were many 
and formidable, but I am satisfied that if it had not been privately 
done, no Diet would have been held. If the time, the men, the place, 
the subjects, and other essential particulars, had been discussed in the 
Church papers, we never would have come to any harmonious de- 



14 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

cision. If the invitation to submit essays had been general, the 
number offered would have been so great as to have protracted the 
meeting to an inconvenient length ; some of them might have been 
objectionable on various grounds. The necessity of a committee of 
inspection, which is usual in many bodies of this character, would 
have arisen and this work would have taken much time, and the re- 
sult would have given offence. For these and other reasons, it was 
thought best to make the arrangements privately, although we anti- 
cipated difficulty and censure, but yet we would thus avoid pro- 
tracted discussion at the opening of the meeting, the time consumed 
in the election of officers, the appointment of committees, and all 
the other time -wasting preliminaries of organizing an irresponsible 
assembly. 

I have the best reasons for knowing that some highly esteemed 
and even scholarly brethren are dissatisfied with our arrangements ; 
their friends also complain ; but with all due respect let me say that 
we could not do otherwise— or rather we did not do otherwise. We 
are satisfied with what has been done, and I think that the results of 
this meeting will satisfy all reasonable men. 

Brethren, this Diet is now declared open; you have heard the 
rules according to which it will be governed^ and the first paper on 
the programme will now be read. 

It will, however, first be necessary for the Diet to determine the 
order in which the papers shall be read. 

On motion of Dr. C. W. Schaeffer, seconded by Dr. Conrad, it 
was resolved that the essays be read and discussed according to the 
published order. 

The first paper was accordingly read. 



THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION AND THE THIRTY- 
NINE ARTICLES OF THE ANGLICAN CHURCH. 



BY REV. JOHN G. MORRIS, D. D., LL.D., BALTIMORE, MD. 

THE Augsburg Confession is the doctrinal magna charta of all 
Protestantdom. Just as all free nations of the earth have drawn 
their principles of civil government from the English "Great 
Charter of Liberties," extorted from King John, in 12 15, so all 
Protestant organizations have based their Formulas of Faith upon 
the greater "Bill of Rights," extorted from Charles V. in Augs- 
burg, 1530. 

An interesting and instructive analogy might be drawn between 
these two famous declarations of civil and religious principles. 

The Augsburg Confession was the first Confession of Faith 
adopted after the Reformation was begun, and the substance of it, 
and, in many instances, its precise language, have been incorporated 
into every similar Declaration adopted by other Communions since 
that day. It is the standard of pure Protestantism, and under this 
banner our triumphs have been achieved. 1 

It is our purpose, in this paper, to show to what extent the Thirty- 

1 Its influence extends far beyond the Lutheran Church. It struck the key- 
note to other evangelical Confessions and strengthened the cause of the Refor- 
mation everywhere. It is, to a certain extent also, the Confession of the 
Reformed and the so-called union churches in Germany, namely, with the 
explanations and modifications of the author himself, in the edition of 1 540. 
In this qualified sense, either expressed or understood, the Augsburg Confes- 
sion was frequently signed by Reformed divines and princes, even by John 
Calvin while ministering to the Church in Strasburg, and as delegate to the 
Conference in Ratisbon, 1541 ; by Favel and Beza, at the Conference in 
Worms, 1557; by the Calvinists, at Bremen, 1562; by Frederick III. (Re- 
formed) Elector of the Palatinate, at the Convention of Princes in Nuremberg, 
1561, and again at the Diet of Augsburg, 1566 ; by John Sigismund of Bran- 
denburg in 1614. — Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, I., 235. 

(*5) 



1 6 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Nine Articles of the Church of England, and indirectly all other 
Protestant Confessions, are indebted to the Augsburg Confession, 
as well as the influence which the Lutherans of Germany had upon 
the English divines of those days in forming their theological basis, 
not only in their Declaration of Faith, but also in the completion 
of their Liturgy and Homilies. 

The testimony shall be principally derived from eminent divines 
of the English Church, accompanied by that of other writers of 
established reputation. All these quotations are taken from the 
original sources. 

In the year 1804, Archbishop Laurence, a distinguished dignitary 
of the Church of England, preached eight sermons before the 
University of Oxford, on "An attempt to illustrate those articles of 
the Church of England which the Calvinists improperly considered 
Calvinistical." These sermons constitute a volume of the Bampton 
Lectures ; the new edition from which these quotations are made, is 
that of Oxford, 1820. The discourses are illustrated by learned 
and extensive notes. 

The nature of the sermons may be inferred from the themes which 
are here given: I. The General Principles of the Reformation 
om its commencement to the period when our Articles were com- 
posed, shewn to be of a Lutheran tendency. II. The same tendency 
pointed out in the Articles themselves, as deducible from the history 
of their composition. III. On Original Sin, as maintained by the 
Scholastics, the Lutherans and our own Reformers. IV. On the 
tenet of the Schools repecting merit de congruo, and that of the 
Lutherans in opposition to it. V. The Article of " Free Will " and 
of "Works before Sanctification," explained in connection with 
the preceding controversy. VI. On the Scholastical doctrine of 
Justification, the Lutheran and that of our own Church. VII. The 
outline of the Predestinarian system stated, as taught in the Schools, 
and as Christianized by Luther and Melanchthon. VIII. The 
Seventeenth Article considered in conformity with the sentiments 
of the latter, and elucidated by our baptismal service. Brief re - 
capitulation of the whole. 

We should like to give copious extracts from this learned work, 
but we are compelled to be brief: 

In Sermon I., p. 12, the Archbishop says : 

"In this country, where the light of literature could not be con- 



DR. morris' ADDRESS. 1 7 

cealed, nor the love of truth suppressed, Lutheranism found numer- 
ous proselytes, who were known by the appellation of 'The men of 
the new learning.' This was particularly the case after the rupture 
with the See of Rome." 

Henry VIII. , at that time King of England, undertook to reform 
the doctrine of the English Church, and the more effectually to 
propagate the new principles in his dominions, and to accelerate the 
arduous task in which he was engaged, invited the ever memorable 
Melanchthon to come to his assistance. That he did not solicit 
the co-operation of Luther on this occasion, should not, perhaps, be 
solely attributed to his personal dislike of the Reformer ; he well 
knew that the Protestant Princes themselves, at the most critical pe- 
riod, had manifested a greater partiality for Melanchthon, and hence 
he urged the latter to come and help him, but he refused. 2 

Laurence proceeds to say : 

' ' Melanchthon * * * possessed every requisite to render truth 
alluring and reformation respectable, and hence upon him, in pre- 
ference, the Princes of Germany conferred the honor of compiling 
the public profession of their Faith. When Henry therefore ap- 
plied for the assistance of this favorite divine, by seeking the aid 
of one to whom Lutheranism had been indebted for her Creed, he 
placed beyond suspicion the nature of that change which he medi- 
tated. * * * Some popular instructions were either published 
(before this) or sanctioned by royal authority, which, with the 
exception of a few points only, breathed the spirit of Lutheran- 
ism. Of this, no one at all conversant with the subject can for a 
moment doubt, who examines with attention the contents of what 
were at that time denominated The Bishop's Book and The King's 
Book, the two most important publications of the day." — p. 195. 

2 Note from Laurence. " After the commencement of our Reformation, 
Melanchthon was repeatedly pressed personally to assist in completing it, both 
in Henry's and Edward's reign. In a letter dated March, 1534, he says 
' Ego jam alteris Uteris in Angliam vocor.' Ep. p. 717, and again October of 
the following year. " Ego rursus in Angliam non solum literis sed legationi- 
bus et vocor et exerceor." Ep. p. 732. Ed. Lond., 1642. The cause, how- 
ever, why he did not come then, as at first he intended (for the elector of 
Saxony had consented to his journey, and Luther was anxious for it), he ex- 
plains in another letter to Camerarius : " Anglicae profectionis cura liberatus 
sum. Postquam enim tragici casus in Anglia acciderunt, magna consiliorum 
mutatio secuta est. Posterior regina (viz., Anne Boleyn), magis accusata quam 
convicta adulterii, ultimo supplicio affecta est." Epist., lib. IV , 187. In 1538 
he was again solicited. During the short reign of Edward, solicitations of a 
similar nature appear to have been frequent." Laurence, pp. 195-99. 



15 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

In speaking of a short code of doctrines, which 3 had been drawn 
up long before the death of Henry, the Archbishop says : 

" Nor is complete originality even here to be met with : the sen- 
timent and many of the very expressions thus borrowed, being them- 
selves evidently derived from another source, The Confession of 
Augsburg" 

"The offices of our Church (after Edward had ascended the 
throne) were completely reformed (which before had been but 
partially attempted), after the temperate System of Luther, * * * 
nor were any alterations of importance, one point alone excepted, 
made at their subsequent revision. At the same period also, the 
first book of Homilies was composed, which, although equally 
Lutheran, * * * has remained without the slightest emenda- 
tion to the present day. * * * Cranmer, who had never con- 
cealed the bias of his sentiments, now more openly and generally 
avowed them. He translated a Lutheran catechism (1547)* 
* * * dedicated it to the King and recommended it in the 
strongest terms. * * * The opinions of the Primate (Cranmer) 
were at that time perfectly Lutheran, and although he afterward 
changed them in one single point ; in other respects, they remained 
unaltered." — p. 17. 

"As little reason is there to question his ability, as his personal 
influence, his personal influence as his attachment to Lutheranism. 
This latter point seems beyond all controversy." — p. 2 4. 

" On the whole, therefore, the principles upon which our Refor- 
mation was conducted, ought not to remain in doubt. With these 
the mind of him to whom we are chiefly indebted for the salutary 
measure, was deeply impressed, and in conformity with them was 
our Liturgy drawn up and the first book of our Homilies, all that 
were at that time composed." 

"That our Articles were in general, founded upon the same prin- 
ciples, I shall in the next place endeavor to prove." 

" Our Reformers, indeed, had they been so disposed, might have 
turned their attention to the novel establishment of Geneva, which 
Calvin had just succeeded in forming according to his wishes, might 
have imitated his singular institutions and inculcated its peculiar 
doctrines, but this they declined, viewing it perhaps as a faint 

3 This was published in 1536, under the title of "Articles Devised by 
the King's Highest Majesty, to establish Christian Quietness and Unity 
among us, and to avoid Contentious Opinions, which Articles be also approved 
by the Consent and Determination of the whole Clergy of this Realm." For 
further information, see Collier, Eccles. Hist. II. 122 fol. Burnet, Hist. Ref. 
I. Add, N., Fuller, C. H. XVI. B. V. 93. 

4 It was a Catechism which Justus Jonas had translated out of Dutchin to 
Latin, and which was taught at Nurnberg, and first published in 1533. 



DR. MORRIS ADDRESS. 1 9 

luminary. * * * This they might have done, but they rather 
chose to give reputation to their opinions and stability to their sys- 
tem by adopting * * * Lutheran sentiments and expressing 
themselves in Lutheran language' 1 — p. 25. 

The Archbishop begins his second sermon in these words : 

" On a former occasion I endeavored to prove that the estab- 
lished doctrines of our Church, from the commencement of the 
Reformation to the period when our Articles first appeared, were 
chiefly Lutheran; to point out that the original plan was ultimately 
adhered to, and that in the composition of our national creed, a 
general conformity with the same principles was scrupulously ob- 
served, will be the object of the present lecture." — p. 29. 

"At the commencement of Edward's reign, it appears that 
Melanchthon was consulted upon this interesting subject. He was 
then alone at the head of the Lutherans, universally respected as the 
head of their much applauded Confession." — p. 36. 

There was some delay in the completion of the Thirty-Nine 
Articles, owing to various causes, and the Archbishop continues: 

"Among other reasons which may be assigned for this delay, is it 
not possible that one might have been the hope of obtaining the 
valuable assistance of Melanchthon, who was repeatedly, in Edward's 
as well as in Henry's reign, invited to fix his residence in this coun- 
try ?"_p. 39. 

"If it be too much to conjecture that the delay was not imputa- 
ble to the wish of submitting them to his personal inspection, and 
improving them by his consummate wisdom, the coincidence never- 
theless of the time, during which they were postponed, with that of 
his much hoped for arrival here, cannot altogether escape observa- 
tion. "5 

" Many of the argumentations upon points of doctrine at the same 

5 In addition to the quotations from Melanchthon's letters given above, 
we may add what he states to Camerarius, in September, 1535 : "Ab Anglis 
bis vocatus sum, sed expecto tertias literas." — Epist., p. 722. And again, 
in April 1536 : " Et sic me Angli exercent, vix ut respirare liceat." Id., 7, 
738. This was when he was holding almost daily conference with the English 
ambassadors in Wittenberg. 

For an account of his relations with the English, see Cardwell's Preface to 
the Liturgy of Edward VI., p. IV., note b. 

It is interesting to know that he earnestly exhorted Cranmer to attempt an 
extension of the benefit beyond the confines of the English Church, to form a 
creed adapted to the Christian world at large. The Confession which he had 
himself drawn up, would, he conceived, prove something of this description. 
See his correspondence with Cranmer in Notes on Sermon II. of Archb. 
Laurence. 



20 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

time introduced, were not only of a Lutheran tendency, but couched 
in the very expressions of the Lutheran Creed." 

"Considering them, therefore, even in their rude outline, but 
more particularly in their perfect state, we discover, that, in various 
parts of their composition, Cranmer studiously kept in view that 
boast of Germany and pride of the Reformation, The Confession 
of Augsburg." 

"If we, then, duly weigh the facts which have been stated, and 
the consequences which seem to result from them, we shall not, per- 
haps, be at a loss to determine from what quarter we are likely to 
collect the best materials for illustrating the Articles of our Church. 
We perceive that in the first compilation, many prominent passages 
were taken from the Augsburg and in the second place from the 
Wurtemberg Confession. 6 * * * These were the Creeds of 
the Lutherans." — p. 46. 

" It may then, perhaps, appear as well from internal as external 
evidence, whence Cranmer derived the principles of our national 
Creed. * * * It may appear, that from the Lutherans , who had 
been his masters in theology, he had learned * * * almost 
everything which he deemed great and good in reformation." — p. 52. 

With regard to the present Liturgy of the Church of England, 
the Archbishop says : 

"In the year 1543, Melanchthon and Bucer drew up a Re- 
formed Liturgy * * * for the use of the Archbishoprick of Co- 
logne. From this work the occasional services of our own Church, 
where they vary from the ancient forms, seem principally to have 
been derived. It was not however, itself original, but in a great de- 
gree borrowed from a Liturgy established at Norimberg. * * * 
All our offices bear evident marks of having been partly taken from 
this work. * * * In our Baptismal service, the resemblance 
between the two productions is particularly striking." — p. 144. 

Proctor, in his History of the Book of Common Prayer, London, 
1870, p. 41, thus speaks : 

" Of all the foreigners who were engaged in the work of Refor- 
mation, Melanchthon had the greatest influence both in the general 
reformation of the English Church, and in the composition of the 

6 This Confessio Wurtembergica was drawn up by Brentius, in the name of 
his Prince, Duke Christopher, who had resolved to send delegates to the 
Council of Trent. The Emperor had invited the Protestant States to send dele- 
gates, promising them full protection. Brentius prepared the Confession for 
that Council as Melanchthon had drawn up the Confessio Saxonica for the 
same purpose. Brentius' was approved by a commission of ten Swabian 
divines and by the city of Strasburg. It was also approved at Wittenberg as 
agreeing with Melanchthon's. Schajfs Creeds, etc., I., 341. 



DR. MORRIS ADDRESS. 21 

English Book of Common Prayer, where it differed from the me- 
diaeval Service Books." 

1 ' Melanchthon was repeatedly invited into England, and it seems 
probable that his opinion, supported by his character and learning, 
had great influence on Cranmer's mind. As early as March, 1534, 
he had been invited more than once ; so that the attention of Henry 
VIII. and Cranmer had been turned towards him before they pro- 
ceeded to any doctrinal reformation. The formularies of faith which 
were put forth in the reign of Henry, are supposed to have origin- 
ated in his advice. On the death of Bucer (Feb. 28, 155 1). the 
professorship of Divinity at Cambridge was offered to Melanchthon, 
and after many letters he was at last formally appointed (May, 1553). 
It is, perhaps, needless to add that he never came to England. 7 



"The first book was largely indebted to Luther, who had com- 
posed a form of service in 1533, for the use of Brandenburg and 
Nurnberg. This was taken by Melanchthon and Bucer as their 
model, when they were invited (1543), by Hermann, Prince Arch- 
bishop of Cologne, to draw up a Scriptural form of doctrine and 
worship for his subjects. This book contained ' Directions for the 
public services and administration of the Sacraments, with forms of 
prayer and a litany.' * * * The Litany presents many strik- 
ing affinities with the amended English Litany of 1544. The ex- 
hortations in the Communion Service and portions of the Baptismal 
Services, are mainly due to this book, through which the influence 
of Luther may be traced in our Prayer Book. * * * 

"They (the Thirteen Articles of 1538) not only indicate the dis- 
position of our leading Reformers to acquiesce in the dogmatic state- 
ments which had been put forward in the Augsburg Confession, but 
have also a prospective bearing of still more importance, as in many 
ways, the groundwork of articles now in use. No one can deny 
that the compilers of the Forty- Two Articles in the reign of Edward 
VI. drew largely from the Lutheran formulary of 1530." — Lbid., 61. 8 

"In the first year of the new reign (1548), he (Cranmer) had 
' set forth ' an English Catechism of a distinctly Lutheran stamp, 
indeed originally composed in German and translated into Latin, 

7 For a fuller account of the negotiation with Melanchthon to goto Eng- 
land, see Hardwick's Articles of Religion, 1859, p. 53, Strype, Eccles. Mem., 
I., 225-98. 

8 For a parallel between the Augsburg Confession and the XIII. Articles 
here spoken of, see Hardwick, pp. 62 seq. ; and for a parallel between the 
Augsburg Confession and the Forty-Two Articles of 1553, see Appendix III., 
Hardwick ; and for a parallel between the Augsburg Confession and the Thirty- 
Nine Articles, as finally agreed upon in 1571, see Annotated Prayer Book. 



22 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

by Justus Jonas, the Elder, one of Luther's bosom friends." — Ibid., 
68. 

"With reference more particularly to the Sacrament of Baptism, 
the baptismal office of our own Reformers was derived in no small 
measure from Luther's Taufbilchlein, itself the offspring and reflex- 
ion of far older manuals." — Ibid., 95. 

Hardwick in Articles of Religion, Cambridge, 1859, p. 13, 
says : 

' ' That Confession (the Augsburg) is most intimately connected 
with the progress of the English Reformation ; and besides the in- 
fluence which it cannot fail to have exerted by its rapid circula- 
tion in our country, it contributed directly in a large degree, to the 
construction of the public formularies of Faith put forward by the 
Church of England. The XIII. Articles, drawn up, as we shall see, 
in 1538, were based almost entirely on the language of the great 
Germanic Confession, while a similar expression of respect is no 
less manifest in the Articles of Edward VI., and consequently in 
that series which is binding now upon the conscience of the Eng- 
lish Clergy." 

"A perception of this common basis in religious matters, aided 
by strong reasons of diplomacy, suggested the commencement of 
negotiations with the ' princes of the Augsburg Confession,' as 
early as the year 1535. The first English Envoy sent among them 
was Robert Barnes, the victim, only five years later, of his predilec- 
tion for the new opinions, etc." — Ibid., 53. 

" But while (King) Henry was thus faltering on the subject of 
communion with the German League, a conference had been opened 
on the spot between the English delegates and a committee of 
Lutheran theologians. Luther himself was a party to it from the 
first and Melanchthon came soon afterwards (January 15, 1536). 
The place of meeting was at Wittenberg in the house of Pontanus 
(Briick), the senior chancellor of Saxony, where Fox dilated on the 
Lutheran tendencies of England, and more especially of his royal 
master. ' ' 9 — Ibid. 5 5 . 

"Afterwards Henry begged the 'Princes of the Augsburg Confes- 
sion ' ' to send to England a legation of divines (including his peculiar 
favorite Melanchthon) to confer on the disputed points with a com- 
mittee of English theologians. * * The whole course of the 
discussion was apparently determined by the plan and order of the 
Augsburg Confession." — Ibid. 56-7. 

9 See Seckendorf Comment, de Lutheranismo, Lib. III., \ xxxix., for an ac- 
count of certain articles of religion which were drawn up by the mediating 
party in 1535 and '36. Of those, one article has reference to the Lord's Sup- 
per, and is merely an expanded version of the Augsburg Confession. 



DR. MORRIS ADDRESS. 23 

"The result of the conference with the Germans was a <boke' 
(book) which is manifestly founded on the Confession of Augsburg, 
often followed it very closely. * * * The article on the Lord's 
Supper is word for word the same." — Ibid. 60. 

Short, in History of the Church of England, London, 1869, p. 
165, says: 

" He (Melanchthon) appears to have been consulted in 1535 con- 
cerning the Articles which were published during the next year ; 
and the definition of justification there given is probably derived 
from the Loci Communes of this author : in the whole of those 
articles the ideas and language of the Lutheran divines have been 
closely followed. Many of the Forty-Two Articles owe their origin 
to the same source, and even those which cannot be traced with 
certainty, exhibit a correspondence with the general opinion of 
the German divines.'' 

"At the commencement of the Reformation in England, our re- 
formers naturally cast their eyes on two standards of faith, on that 
of the Church of Rome, and that of the Lutheran churches, which 
had already discarded the errors of the papal court. The rule, 
then, which sound reason would seem to dictate is, that those points 
wherein the Church of England found it necessary to differ from 
that of Rome, it should refer to the opinions of the newly estab- 
lished churches and follow them as far as they were consistent with 
Scripture ; and where that which was taught by the Lutherans ap- 
peared to be questionable, the Church of England should either 
borrow the expression of its opinions from some other reformed 
church, or construct its own articles directly from the word of God. 
In our articles are contained the great truths of Christianity * * 
there are many which are derived from the Lutheran Church. * * 
In our public services the greater part of the Common Prayer Book 
is taken from the Roman Ritual, and some portions are borrowed 
from the Lutheran Church, or rather drawn up in imitation of 
them." 

"About the same time Cranmer (1548) put forth his Catechism. 
This work was translated from a German Catechism used in Nurem • 
berg, through the medium of a Latin version made by Justus Jonas. 
— Ibid. 142. 

"In 1535, Fox, Heath and Barnes were sent ambassadors to 
Smalcalde, where proposals were made to them by the Protestant 
Princes, that the King should approve the Confession of Augsburg." 
— Ibid. no. 

"Whatever use he (Cranmer, 1536) might have made of the Hel- 
vetic Confession in forming his own opinions, he does not appear 
to have introduced it into the work in which he was engaged (pre- 
paring the Forty-Two Articles), but with regard to the Augsburg 
Confession (1530, printed 153 r, and republished with alteration 



24 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

1540), there is not only a general agreement in doctrine, but in 
many places the very words of the one are transferred into the 
other."— Ibid. 268.10 

"It appears that he (Archbishop Parker of Canterbury, 1559) 
had himself been recasting the Forty-two Articles of King Edward 
* * and that he added to the Articles, which had been mainly 
drawn from the earlier Lutheran Creeds, some new clauses obtained 
from the more recent confession of Wurtemberg." — Car dwell, Syn- 
odalia, Oxford, 1842, 2 vols., Vol. I. /. 35. 

"These Articles, forty-two in number, the first that were con- 
structed by the Church of England, on the principles of the refor- 
mation, were indebted to the clear theological distinctions of Me- 
lanchthon and other reformers of Germany, and derived more es- 
pecially from the Augsburg Confession." — Ibid., Vol., I. 1. 

Bishop Bull, in his "Apology for the Harmony and its Author," 
bound with his " Examen Censurae," pp. 292 seq., Oxford, 1844, 
says in reply to Dr. Tully : 

" Dr. Tully now hastens to the Augsburg Confession ; where, in 
the first place, he finds fault with me because I called that the great- 
est of all the Reformed Confessions, not excepting even our own 
Anglican one. * * 1 only said the same thing that many learned 
men both of our own and foreign countries have said before me, 
and who also highly honored our Church. Now the Augsburg Con- 
fession is deservedly called the greatest, for more than one reason. 
In the first place (not to say anything of its most excellent and 
learned principal author, Philip Melanchthon), it was the first of all 
Confessions. Next, when it was published, it was approved of by 
the consent of almost all, if not of all, the Reformed Churches, 
Universities and Doctors. Lastly, it is still received and held in 
certain kingdoms and great principalities and free States. The 
Doctor, moreover, is offended, because I said that the heads of our 
Church had followed and imitated this Confession. But what can 
be clearer than this ? The first article of our Confession is taken 
almost word for word from the first of the Augsburg. Our second 
is clearly copied from the third of Augsburg. Also the sixteenth in 
ours * * openly imitates, towards the end, the anathemas of 
the eleventh in the Augsburg, as our twenty-fifth does the thir- 
teenth in the Augsburg. Again, in our homilies, how often must the 
attentive reader who is acquainted with Melanchthon's writings, hear 
him speaking? Add to which * * that Hooper of blessed 
memory * * was in the habit of copying long passages from 
Melanchthon's writings, almost word for word." 

Bishop Bull, in his Harmonia Apostolica, Oxford, 1842, pp. 

10 For these Forty-Two Articles in Latin and English, and in parallel columns 
with the Elizabethan Articles, see Hardwick's Appendix, III., pp. 277-333. 



DR. MORRIS' ESSAY. 25 

197 seq., says, "This is the same as is meant in the Confession of 
Augsburg, which as it is the most noble and ancient of all the Re- 
formed Churches, so both here and in other places, the heads of 
our Church have followed it, that whoever is ignorant of it can 
scarcely conceive the true meaning of our articles." 

Bp. Whittingham, of Maryland, in the charge to his clergy, 1849, 
says, "that with the Augsburg Confession their (the Thirty-Nine 
Articles) connection is of a nature the most intimate and direct, 
substantiable by superabundant evidence, both internal and circum- 
stantial. In more than one respect, the Augsburg Confession is 
the source of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England 
and America — their prototype in form, their model in doctrine, 
and the very foundation of many of their expressions ; while others 
are drawn from its derivative expositions and repetitions." 

It is not inappropriate to introduce the testimony of another dis- 
tinguished witness, not of the Church of England : 

"The Thirty-Nine Articles were established as the law of the 
land under Queen Elizabeth, in 15 71. * * * They are based on 
German Confessions of faith. Very probably the thirteen which 
were found among Cranmer's papers were the result of Conferences 
between German and English theologians, begun in Wittenberg, 
1533, and continued in London in 1538, who aimed at a union of 
both churches. These thirteen closely follow the order of the first 
seventeen Articles of the Augsburg Confession, and are copied 
nearly word for word." — Herzog's Encycloft., Vol. I., 325, which 
see also for the differences between the whole Thirty-Nine Articles 
and the Augsburg Confession. 

Schaff, in Creeds of Christendom, I. 623, says: 

"The Edwardine Articles were based in part, as already ob- 
served, upon a previous draft of Thirteen Articles, which was the 
joint product of German and English divines, and based upon the 
doctrinal Articles of the Augsburg Confession. Some passages 
were transferred verbatim from the Lutheran document to the Thir- 
teen Articles, and from these to the Forty-Two (1553), and were 
retained in the Elizabethan revision (1563 and 15 71). This will 
appear from the following comparison. The corresponding words 
are printed in Italics." 

After giving the comparison in parallel columns, Schaff thus con- 
cludes : 

" Besides these passages, there is a close resemblance in thought, 
though not in language, in the statements of the doctrine of origi- 
3 



26 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

nal sin and of the possibility of falling after justification. Several 
of the Edwardine Articles * * * were suggested by Article 
Seventeen of the Augsburg Confession, which is directed against 
the Anabaptists." 

And finally, one extract from one of our own writers : 

"As to the Twenty-Five Articles, which embody the acknowl- 
edged doctrines of the Methodist Societies, they are in language 
and substance so nearly identical with the Thirty-Nine Articles of 
the Church of England, that they must be traced through them to 
the same source They are only remoter issues from the same Lu- 
theran fountain." 

" It is, therefore, with justice that the Lutheran Church takes to 
herself the high appellation of The Mother of Protestants.' 1 '' — Seiss, 
Eccles. Luth., p. 124. 

Thus, the Lutheran Origin of the Thirty-Nine Articles has been 
fully illustrated. Many more extracts from the writings of great 
divines of the Church of England, might have been given, but they 
only reiterate and confirm what the earlier writers have said, and, 
therefore, it is deemed superfluous to insert them. 

The second paper was then read. 



THE RELATIONS OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH TO 
THE DENOMINATIONS AROUND US. 

An Essay by Charles P. Krauth, D. D., LL. D., Norton Professor 
of Systematic Theology and Ecclesiastical Polity in the Evan- 
gelical Lutheran Theological Seminary, at Philadelphia. 

I. THE DENOMINATIONS AROUND US. 

"The relations of the Lutheran Church to the denominations 
around us," very naturally lead us to ask, who, and what, and why, 
are the denominations around us ? 

The term Denominations. 
A denomination, as we use the term, is, in the sphere of Religion, 
a class or collection of individuals, called by the same name ; a 
body of persons who have separated, or are separate from others, in 
virtue of their holding in common some special doctrine, or set of 
doctrines, or government, or usage, or discipline. The word, 
though it is in this sense the resort, if not the outgrowth of an eva- 
sive courtesy, is preferable to the terms sect, or schism — which are its 
nearest historical equivalents — because in itself it simply marks a 
fact, without expressing or insinuating an unfavorable judgment. 
It is preferable in discussion to the word " Church," for it does not 
involve a judgment. In a word, it is a colorless objective term ex- 
pressing the thing we mean, without committing us to an opinion 
of it. 

Who and What are the Denominations around us ? 
The denominations around us are real and distinct organizations, 
with distinct names, creeds, constitutions, books of worship, terms of 
admission to the ministry, terms and tests of membership, and a 
discipline; with a distinct religious literature, publishing houses, the- 
ological schools and missions. As organizations they are as really 
distinct as states, or nations, or associations. The intense partisan- 
ship which builds up walls, and the flabby unionism which pretends 
to disregard them, seem at first in hopeless dis-harmony — but they 

(27) 



2% FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

really are part of one idea. When men are to be kept in, Denom- 
inationalism magnifies its walls ; when men are to be let in, it makes 
them very low — or has abundant openings in them. 

The denominations around us cover nearly every leading form 
of Christianity and of its distortions, and a number of its smallest 
bodies, parasites, and parasites of parasites. About thirty years ago 
Rev. E. N. Kirk 1 said "In the Western Reserve," "that New 
England of the West," " there are forty-one sects; all professing to 
believe the Bible." If our land were searched through all its bor- 
ders, the number of denominations would be seen to be simply 
appalling — some in vigorous life, some rising, some dying out, 
some dead and dusty but not swept out of sight, some fossilized 
into a sort of stony existence, others like soap-bubbles expanding in 
glittering swiftness toward their bursting. 

Classification : Historical. 
When we ask, What they are ? and Whence they came ? Why they 
are around us ? we shall find that the history of their origin is largely 
the explanation of it. With respect to their purely historical basis, 
their genesis and rise as particular churches, the great bodies and 
tendencies into which Christendom is divided may be thus arranged : 

I. The Roman Catholic Church takes her name from her identi- 
fication with herself of the Catholic Church proper, as the Church 
of the Redeemed, out of which there is no salvation. She makes 
the Church Catholic an organization which centres in the See of 
Rome, with an infallible Pope at its head, and rests on the theory 
that Peter was Primate of the Apostles ; that at the end of his life 
he was Bishop of Rome, and that the primacy and official infalli- 
bility which belonged to him as an apostle, were transferred to his 
successors as bishops. 

II. The Greek Orthodox Church marks in its name Greek, the sepa- 
ration from the Roman in the divided empire, and adds "Ortho- 
dox" to assert its claim to the possession of the pure faith. It is 
strongly anti-papal without being Protestant. 

III. The Evangelical Church, popularly called the Lutheran 
Church, whose centre is the Gospel ; Gospel Grace against Legalism ; 
Gospel Sufficiency over against Traditionalism, the Abuse of Reason 
and Fanaticism ; and Gospel Unity in Faith and Sacraments over 



1 Sermon in behalf of Am. H. Miss. Soc, May, 1848. 



DR. KRAUTH S ESSAY. 29 

against the separatism of sect, and the spurious Unionism of com- 
promise and of ignored truth. 

IV. The Calvinistic- Reformed Church of the Continent, consid- 
ered in its unity. It embraces especially the German, Dutch and 
French Churches, and is represented in our land mainly by the 
descendants of immigrants of its original nationalities. 

V. The Eclectic- Protestant or Anglican Church, the Church of 
England, her sisters in Scotland and Ireland, her daughter the Pro- 
testant Episcopal Church, and now her grand-daughter the Re- 
formed Episcopal Church. 

VI. The great conflicting bodies which grew out of governmental 
divergences from the Established Church of England and Scotland, 
or from each other. The Presbyterians and Independents arose first 
from the assertion of the divine right of Church government 
opposed to the Prelatical, and then divided from each other, on the 
assertion on the one side that this government of divine right is the 
Presbyterian, on the other that it is Independent and Congregational. 
Presbyterianism overcame Episcopacy, and till 1797 was scarcely 
troubled with Independency in Scotland; but Independency proved 
the mightier movement in England. It vanquished Presbyterianism 
in their earlier battles ; it sent forth its colonists of flint and steel to 
New England ; it stamped itself through them and their descendants 
on the institutions and thinking of our New World. It evolved the 
Yankee race, and produced a brain which claimed to be a universal 
solvent. When Socinianism swallowed up English Presbyterianism, 
Independency in the Congregational and Baptist Churches gave 
shelter to the few who still held the old faith. But in the mystery 
of history, New England's Independency has repeated the sorrowful 
experience of Old England's Presbyterianism — perhaps because that 
patent universal cerebral solvent, in which it trusts, has sometimes 
had pearls dropped into it, which are better undissolved. 

VII. The divergent bodies which added to the Independent view 
of Church government, peculiar views of the mode and subject of 
Baptism — the Baptists of various Schools, Particular or Calvinistic, 
General or Arminian. The Mennonites hold the Baptist view of the 
subjects of Baptism, but reject immersion as its necessary mode. 

VIII. Under the general spirit and modes of Pietism ; contemplat- 
ing association for religious ends within the Established Church ; 
dividing from the beginning on the Calvinistic doctrines ; under the 
conflicting leadership of Whitefield and Wesley, there came forth in 



30 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

the Church of England a divergence in spirit, ripening into a divi- 
sion in fact, marked by the desire of larger freedom in doctrine 
and worship, more positive emphasis of the evangelical doctrines, 
and especially of the subjective elements of the plan of salvation, larger 
play for the emotions and the expression of them, more complete 
adaptation to the supposed wants of the masses and their peculiar- 
ities, and stricter discipline in a compact organization. This diver- 
gence has matured into Methodism. 

IX. Not large, but for many reasons memorable,is the body known 
variously as Herrnhuthers, Brothers of the Unity, Bohemian and Mo- 
ravian Brethren. The fragments of the Bohemian and Moravian 
Brethren, left after many a storm of war and persecution, sought re- 
fuge from new dangers, 1720, and found it under the fostering care 
of Count Zinzendorf. Their earnest piety, their domestic virtues, 
blessed of God, gathered around their new home, the village of 
Herrnhuth. Preserving intact in their homes their ancient, simple 
and peculiar modes and careful domestic discipline, they became 
communicants in the neighboring Evangelical Lutheran Church at 
Bertholsdorf. This drew to them others, not Bohemians or Moravians, 
but who, regarding them as brethren in the Lutheran faith, joined 
them and conformed to their peculiar discipline, as calculated to 
promote holy and happy living. The growth became so great that 
Herrnhuth needed a pastor of its own, and by the influence of Zin- 
zendorf, Steinhofer, a clergyman of the Lutheran Church, was called 
1733. In their original form the Herrnhuthers were nominally an 
Evangelical Lutheran congregation, in which, in conformity with the 
liberty which the Lutheran Church maintains, they claimed to pre- 
serve the ancient discipline of the Brethren in Unity. So Zinzen- 
dorf and the Herrnhuthers themselves define it. 2 

Out of this simple beginning Count Zinzendorf developed a system 
of marked peculiarity in faith and discipline. The Moravians of 
our day are distinguished by indeterminateness on the points of 
doctrine which divide the Church, careful organization, and sys- 
tem, discipline milder than the old, yet still strict, a quiet home- 
life, simplicity of manners, heroic devotion to missions ; and have 
made the most effectual answer to the earlier charges against them, 
by confessing what was wrong and removing it. 

X. Arminianism has not, as such, embodied itself with any force 

2 Budingsche Sammlung, I., 48, 115. 



DR. KRAUTH S ESSAY. 3 I 

into a distinct denomination, but it has shown its power as a ten- 
dency which has influenced or disturbed all denominations. It is 
the doctrinal system of the Jesuits as against the Jansenists. It was 
originally characteristic of the High Church party, beginning with 
the time of Laud Tone of the charges against whom, in the trial which 
led to his beheading, was his Arminianism) ; but it is now the gen- 
eral position of High, Low and Broad alike, with few exceptions 
It is the system of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of some of the 
Baptist communions, and of the Cumberland Presbyterians. It has 
been winning point after point in the very heart of nominal Calvin- 
ism. From its early, cautious, negative tendency, in which it was 
no more than a gentle protest against the five extravagances of Cal- 
vinism, it ran out, first in the passionate development, which was 
aided by proscription and persecution, and afterwards, by its essen- 
tial tendencies, into Socinianism, or became a bridge by which 
Calvinism made a transition into the same system. 

XL The Friends arose partly in reaction against the formalism of 
the Church of England and the polemical spirit of Puritanism, and 
partly in the general spirit of religious enthusiasm which marked the 
period of the great civil war. They are now divided into the Or- 
thodox Friends, the Hicksites, and the Primitive Friends. The 
worldly thrift, the persistency of their witness against the evils of 
war and slavery, and their humanity, have made the Friends an 
important social element. 

Denominational Names. 
To express the characteristic diversity in a name, where diversity 
has been so great and complicated, has been no inconsiderable tax 
of ingenuity. Some of the denominations take their name from a 
single doctrine, as Advent, Unitarian, Universalist. Some reach 
new names by disavowing all particular names, as Bible Christians, 
Church of Christ, Church of God ; some take their names from 
their theories or modes of Church government, as Congregational, 
Episcopal, Presbyterian. In some cases the names of leaders have 
been fixed on churches or systems, as Arminian, Calvinists, Mennon- 
nites, Wesleyans, Some bear historical nicknames, as Methodists, 
Quakers. Some derive their name in whole or part from their origi- 
nal nationality or language. The term Reformed 'plays a large part 
in denominational terminology. We have Baptist Reformed ; the 
Reformed Church in America, or Dutch Reformed ; the Reformed 



32 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Church in the United States, or German Reformed; the Reformed 
Episcopal ; the Reformed Presbyterian (original) ; the Reformed 
Presbyterian (General Synod); the Reformed Presbyterian (Synod). 
We see coupled in some of these titles, Reformation in the fifth 
potentiation. 

In this single city of Philadelphia, this city of brotherly love, we 
have around us nearly all the leading forms of Protestantism, Heresy 
and Sectarianism. The mere display of names is indeed in some 
respects illusive; first, because, except as the revelation of a danger- 
ous tendency, many of the sects are insignificant — the offspring of 
ignorance and fanaticism, and destined to speedy extinction. Sec- 
ondly, because, taking the great denominations, great in numbers 
or clearly defined in principle, the points of diversity are at their 
root few. It is the varied combinations which make so great a num- 
ber of sects. The Rule of Faith and how to interpret it, the eternal 
decrees of God, the person of Christ, Justification, the internal na- 
ture of Word and Sacraments, the Polity of the Church, external 
ceremonies, are the grand points of diversity. 

And yet the names associated with peculiarities and classes form an 
important basis of classification. So far as a direct divine warrant for 
any peculiar name is concerned, they are all alike ; for though the name 
be a Biblical one, it has no divine warrant as the exclusive property 
of a denomination. There can be no divine warrant for applying a 
divine name except to a divine thing — and that a denomination as 
such, is not. ''Believers," "Disciples of Christ," "Brethren," 
"Friends," mark true Christians as individuals in all denominations. 
"The Church," the "Church of God," without a plural, is the 
Church Catholic and invisible. The name Christian is of human 
origin, and is applied to the individual disciples, not to the Church 
even as a whole, still less to particular churches. All the particular 
names, with their specific application, have risen in history, and are 
defensible only as the history which became the occasion of their 
necessity is defensible. The most offensive and intensely sectarian 
of all names are those which are in Scripture, and mark the whole 
Christian communion as such, but are diverted to be the trade-mark 
of any denomination. 

A name is a claim — and a false name is a stereotyped lie. Hence 
the responsibility of assuming or tolerating a name is in itself very 
great. A name is in itself a creed ; a man is bound to what the 



DR. KRAUTH S ESSAY. $$ 

name really means which he bears, and no amount of private dis- 
avowal neutralizes the obligations and responsibility of it. While a 
man calls himself Roman Catholic, Methodist or Calvinist, he binds 
himself to be Roman Catholic, Methodist or Calvinist, and we are 
bound to treat him as such. If he privately repudiates the claim of 
his Church name, so much the worse for his intelligence and sin- 
cerity. 

2 he Right to Exist. 

And this leads us to ask as preliminary to our just relations to 
them, on what grounds of principle do the denominations around 
us vindicate their right to exist ? To some of the sects this question 
would come like a thunderbolt. They have never raised it. They 
never knew that such a question could be raised. In the Sectarian 
Declaration of Independence, among the certain inalienable rights 
are sectarian life, sectarian liberty, and sectarian pursuit of happi- 
ness. They may deny a man's right to wear a coat or a hat not 
fashioned after the sacred pattern shown them in the mount of their 
private hallucination, but as to a man's right to join himself to any 
sect he thinks good, or to make another sect if the existing sects do 
not suit him, of that they never doubted. In the Popery of Sect, 
" Stat pro ratione voluntas " — their best reason is, they wish it so. 

Yet this question is a great question. It is the question. The 
denomination which has not raised it is a self-convicted sect. The 
denomination which cannot return such an answer to it as at least 
shows sincere conviction that it has such reasons, should be shunned 
by all Christians who would not have the guilt of other men's sins. 

We draw a line then at once between those denominations which 
either give no reason for their rightful existence, or a reason so 
transparently false as to defy credulity ; and those on the other 
hand which have reasons — reasons of such plausibility as to satisfy 
us that thoughtful men may sincerely hold them. 

There is also an obvious line to be drawn between those com- 
munions which went forth from Rome, the primal forms of 
Protestantism ; and those which have arisen by division and sub- 
division within Protestantism, — between the genera of Protestantism 
and the species of those genera — between those with whom Rome 
made schism, and those which have made schism in the Protestant 
body. 

We must also look with very different eyes on those bodies whose 



34 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

historical record and present acts are in accordance with the official 
principles on which they rest their right to exist ; and those which 
desert the principles which gave them name, creeds and position — 
those bodies which exist on one principle and act on another, 
which lengthen out their lives by abandoning what they once con- 
sidered sacred, ignoring their history, concealing their confessed 
doctrines, or evading the necessary consequences of them, and who 
make their name and their very existence a fraud, — and whose in- 
tensest hatred is inflicted on those who remind them of their history, 
and of the doctrines which gave them their original being. 

II. HISTORY OF THE ORIGINATION OF THE QUESTION IN DISCUSSION. 
RISE OF DIVISIONS : DENOMINATIONALISM AND UNIONISM. 

It may help to shed light upon the question we are to discuss, to 
look at the way in which it has risen. What are the historical 
sources of the laxity which has become a characteristic of our time, 
and especially of our country, and with this the sources of the Union- 
ism which has attempted to cover over the laxity and glorify it? The 
common roots of both s' retch far and wide. 

So tremendous a movement as the Reformation was inevitably 
attended by various imperfections and distortions. The need of 
some sort of reform was universally admitted. Rome then admitted 
it, and now admits it. But the ultra-conservatism which was rep- 
resented in the reformatory part of the Romish Church which would 
not break with it, proposed little more than a superficial correction 
of some evils, while their real causes remained undisturbed. Antip- 
odal to this there was a radicalism which proposed to sweep away 
everything existent, and to make a new start from its own inter- 
pretation of the letter of the Bible, ignoring the centuries of the 
Church's history. There was fanaticism which proposed in new 
revelations to find what it imagined the old revelation had failed to 
furnish. The real heart of the Reformation was with that part of 
the movement which was conservative toward the good, radical to- 
ward the evil ; which, tenacious of the letter, was guided by it to the 
spirit ; which recognized the Church as God's work, through the 
Word ; which over against Rome maintained the sole authority of the 
Word ; over against Fanaticism, the sufficiency of the Word; over 
against Radicalism, the witness of the Church, whose pure text was to 
be reached by sifting the various readings of the ages. There came 
also into the history of the Reformation, as there comes into every 



dr. krauth's essay. 35 

history, ignorant assumption, envy, ambition, love of novelty, and 
all the human passions which hover around the great battle-fields of 
the world, the host of camp-followers, the clouds of vultures. The 
test of every cause is its ability to endure its friends. The little 
finger of Carlstadt and Munzer was thicker than Tetzel and the 
Pope's loins. 

Nothing so endangers the great principle of the right of private 
judgment, as a misunderstanding of what the principle is, and a 
false application of it. The right to search the Scriptures is not to 
be confounded with the evidence that the Scriptures have been 
searched. The judicial responsibility of the conscience to God 
alone is not to be confounded with that responsibility which every 
man must assume in the recognition of another man's views as truth ; 
a responsibility to which every man must submit his own views who 
wishes to make them a basis of recognition and fellowship. The 
right of private judgment is not a right to force fellowship in the re- 
sults of our private judgment on those whose private judgment is as- 
sured that we have abused ours. It is not their right to force them- 
selves on us. That was a private judgment of Peter's which was met 
by " Get thee behind me, Satan." The right of private judgment 
in the exercise of which a man becomes a Romanist is not the right 
to be accepted as a Protestant. There is no principle in nature or 
revelation which justifies the conscientiously wrong, in demanding 
assent or silence from the conscientiously correct. The right of 
private judgment is not the right of public recognition. 

The disturbing and radical element in the Reformation prepared 
the way for the later laxity and the Unionism which attended it. 
The tendency which was represented in Carlstadt and CEcolampa- 
dius, and most energetically and consistently in Zwingli, gave an 
early impulse in this direction. This it did, not simply in setting 
forth the great error which originated the divisions in the Protestant 
Reformation, but by the levity with which it regarded the whole 
matter of division. A division which meant the rending of the Re- 
formation, its confusion before its enemies, and the periling of its 
existence, was regarded as a something which must be held at every 
cost, and yet, whose guilt could be condoned by the shedding of a 
few tears, the offer of a hand. 

Luther and Zwingli at Marburg. 
At Marburg the whole question was epitomized, and Luther there 



$6 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

passed through a sorer struggle, a mightier temptation, and showed 
himself more matchless as a hero than at Worms — for what is harder 
than to reject the advances of seeming love, which pleads for our 
acknowledgment on the ground of devotion to a common cause. 
Luther saved the Reformation by withholding the hand, whose 
grasp would have meant the recognition of fundamental error — either 
as in unity with faith, or as too little a thing to be weighed. Not 
only Luther's personal qualities, but his religious and reformatory 
principles, were precisely the same as revealed against Rome and 
against the Zwinglian tendencies. There is no consistency in blam- 
ing him in his relation to the latter, while we praise him for his 
attitude to the former. It would have been a surrender of the vital 
principle by which the Reformation itself stands or falls — the au- 
thority and clearness of the Word. Concession at the point at which 
Zwingli demanded it would not have stopped there. Other conces- 
sions to other errors would have been demanded, with equal justice, 
on the same grounds. The political element was no small one in this 
early desire for Unionism, and the complexion it would have given 
would have brought a Capel, at which not Zwingli but the Refor- 
mation itself would have fallen. We know well that there are good 
people so blinded to the real character of the scene at Marburg 
that they regard Zwingli's course as the very embodiment of Chris- 
tian love, and Luther, they think of, as hurried away by the 
zealotry of partisanship. When Zwingli declared that he desired 
fellowship with no men so much as with the Wittenbergers, he 
pressed on them the hand of fraternity, he wept because they de- 
clined taking it. What a loving, large spirit is that ! men exclaim ; 
and how poor before it seems the narrowness of Luther and of Me- 
lanchthon, of whom the editor of Zwingli's works has said that "at 
that time he was almost harsher than Luther himself. " 3 But the 
men of Wittenberg had not forgotten how Zwingli, in 1524, had 
endorsed the book which Carlstadt had directed against Luther 
under the title : "Of the execrable abuse of the Eucharist." They 
had not forgotten that, in 1525, Zwingli had assailed Luther in 
his "Commentary of true and false Religion," had pronounced 
Luther's language on the Eucharist as "monstrous," and had said 
in the most sweeping way that " neither were those to be listened to 
who though they saw that the opinion cited" (Luther's) " was not 

3 H. Zwingli's Werke : (Schuler u. Schulthess) Vol. II. iii. 55. 



dr krauth's essay. 37 

only coarse, but impious and frivolous, yet said that we eat Christ's 
true body, but spiritually." The Wittenbergers had not forgotten 
that he had called those who held the doctrine of the true presence 
" Carnivori," " a stupid set of men," and had said that the doctrine 
was " impious, foolish, inhuman and worthy of anthropophagites." 
And these were the amenities of Zwingli at a period when Luther 
had not written a solitary word against him. The Wittenbergers 
had not forgotten that in that same year the book of Zwingli had 
been followed up by another, in which he characterizes the holders 
of Luther's view as " cannibals." They had not forgotten that in 
1527 Zwingli had distinctly declared that his own view involved the 
fundamentals of faith, and had condemned Bucer for saying that 
"either view might be held without throwing faith overboard." On 
this Zwingli says : " I do not approve of his view. To believe that 
consciences are established by eating flesh, is conjoined with throw- 
ing faith overboard {cum fidei jactura)} The Wittenbergers had 
not forgotten that in 1527 Zwingli had written a book against 
Luther, had dedicated it to the Elector of Saxony, and charged 
Luther to his own Elector with " error and great audacity," which _ 
he claims to have "exposed." All this the Wittenbergers could not 
forget, but all this they could have forgiven had it been sorrowed 
over and withdrawn; but all this remained unretracted, unexplained, 
unregretted. Zwingli himself being judge, there was not the fra- 
ternity of a common faith. The conflicting modes of interpreta- 
tion involved in fact the whole revelation of God. What Zwingli 
still held of the old faith would have gone down before his rational- 
istic method, just as surely as what he already rejected. All went 
down before it in aftertime. Luther uttered the warning, but 
Zwingli would not believe it. His course was the beginning of that 
effusive sentiment of compromise, which from the rill of 1529 has 
gathered to the torrent of 1877, and before which we are expected 
to allow, without a struggle, all fixed principle to be swept away. 

How fleeting the better mind of Zwingli was, is shown by the fact 
that on the margin of a copy of the Articles of Agreement at Mar- 
burg, he wrote annotations, which prove how hollow, superficial and 
untrustworthy the whole thing was on his part. 

The violence of Zwingli had been the more unpardonable because 
he had originally held the same view of the Lord's Supper as 

4 Exegesis ad Lutherum. 



38 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Luther, and must have known that it did not involve what he 
charges upon it. Even in 1526 he wrote to Billican and others 
who held Luther's doctrine : "You affirm that Christ's true body 
is eaten, but in a certain ineffable manner." Zwingli, indeed, con- 
fesses in so many words that he had rejected the literal and histori- 
cal interpretation of the words of the Lord's Supper, before he was 
able to assign even to his own mind a reason for it. He tells us that 
after he had made up his conviction without a reason, a dream sug- 
gested a reason. It was indeed a reason demonstratively irrelevant — 
an interpretation which his co-workers, Carlstadt and CEcolampadius, 
both rejected, and at which a fair scholar of any school would now 
laugh — but it was enough to begin the great schism whose miseries 
live and spread to this hour. The mode which unsettles the doc- 
trine of the true presence, unsettles every distinctive Evangelical 
doctrine — the method which explains it away, explains everything 
away. To give it up is in principle to give up everything. The 
division began at the doctrine of the Eucharist; the union must 
begin at the point of division. The bone must be knit where it was 
broken, or the arm of the Church will continue to be distorted and 
enfeebled. 

In a few months after the scenes at Marburg, without a vocation 
from God or man, Zwingli prepared a Confession, part of whose 
object was to condemn the views of our Church, and to mark his 
own separation from it. He attempted to thrust upon the Diet at 
Augsburg his rationalistic speculations, whose tendency was to 
throw contempt upon our Confession, to weaken and endanger our 
cause, to peril the liberty and lives of our confessors, and to haz- 
ard the cause of the entire Reformation. It was an uncalled-for 
parading of division in the presence of a ruthless enemy. In his 
Confession, he classes the Lutherans with the Papists, and speaks of 
them as " those who are looking back to the flesh-pots of Egypt." 
He characterizes our doctrine as an "error in conflict with God's 
Word," and says that " he will make this as clear as the sun to the 
emperor, and will attack the opponents with arguments like batter- 
ing-rams." This is dated July 3d, 1530. Contrast it with the 
brief and gentle words, which on June 25 th, had been presented in 
the Tenth Article of the Augsburg Confession : " Therefore, the 
opposite doctrine is rejected," "and they disapprove of those who 
teach in a contrary way." 



DR. KRAUTH S ESSAY. 39 

History of Interdenominational Fellowship. 

The system of denominationalism had hardly fairly been inaugu- 
rated by the writings and acts of Carlstadt and Zwingli, before the 
inconsistencies, miseries and disasters it involves began to manifest 
themselves. 

By the system of denominationalism, we mean the system which 
theoretically or practically rests on the supposition that two or 
more Christian bodies can, without imputation either of fun- 
damental error or schism on either part, have conflicting 
names, creeds, altars, pulpits, discipline — that they can oc- 
cupy and struggle for a common territory, and yet keep the 
unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace — can have doctrines and 
sacraments so diverse as to necessitate the formation of distinct 
communions, and yet be in the unity of full Christian fraternity. 

Bucer aided the general tendency by his ambiguity, insisting that 
the differences were not real; abandoning Zwinglianism, yet insisting 
that it differed from Lutheranism only in terms; abandoned by 
Zwinglianism, yet trying still to render it tractable. Calvin at times 
pursued the same general line of movement toward the Lutherans. 
The Calvinists avoided an absolute condemnation of Lutheranism, 
largely but not exclusively for reasons of policy. They constantly 
took the ground that they were right, and that the Lutherans were 
wrong, but not so wrong as to prevent unity. But where Calvinism 
had no interest in being mild toward Lutheranism, it spake out 
with a severity indicative of its real feeling. Castellio, as the fore- 
runner of Arminianism, favored a general laxity, but did not find 
Calvin or his friends disposed to indulge him in it. But the real 
consistent movement to a broad principle of comprehension began 
with the Socinians. In this respect, as in others, the matured Ar- 
minianism of the left wing, on the continent, showed a Socinianiz- 
ing tendency. The Friends helped to break down the authority of 
the written word, and the sense of the importance of creeds. The 
Brownists, and later Independents , in England and in New England, 
were helpers to the same end, as soon as the rigidity of party ardor 
passed away. The unhistorical bodies generally have contributed 
to this tendency, among whom have been specially active the Meth- 
odists. 

Literature. 
There is a great body of irenical Unionistic literature. Every 



40 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

great division of Western Christendom has furnished some distin- 
guished names in this department. Among nominal Roman Cath- 
olics are prominent the names of Erasmus, Wicel, Cassander, and 
Hontheim. In the Reformed Church we find the names of Duraeus, 
Francis Junius, the younger Turretin. The Arminians have been 
thus specially distinguished in their whole spirit. Grotius was most 
eminent among them in this, as in so many other departments. 

In the Lutheran Church Calixtus and his entire school defended 
Syncretistic views, not intercommunion indeed, or exchange of 
pulpits, but general fraternity. Pfaff, and the irenical school of the 
Eighteenth Century, followed in the same general line of thinking. 

The Unionistic Controversy of recent times in Germany, looking 
to the blending of the Lutheran and German Reformed Churches., 
has drawn forth an immense number of works on both sides. 

Among the books which in this country have had an extraordin- 
ary influence in leading to the practice of Unionistic communion, 
the ablest and most influential has been the Plea of Dr. John M. 
Mason, for what, by a very bold begging of the question, he was 
pleased to call " Holy Communion on Catholic Principles." In 
August, 1810, the Associate Reformed Church in the city of New 
York, then recently formed under the ministry of Dr. Mason, was 
led to hold its assemblies in " the house belonging to the church 
under the pastoral care of Dr. John B. Romeyn, of the General As- 
sembly of the Presbyterian Church in North America." As the 
hours of service were different, the first effect of this arrangement 
was a partial amalgamation in the exercises of public worship ; 
the next an esteem of each other as "united in the same pre- 
cious faith;" and finally, after a very short time, invitations on 
both sides to join in the Lord's Supper. The bulk of the members 
of both churches, as well as some belonging to correlate churches, 
communed together. The Communion thus established has been 
perpetuated, and has extended itself to ministers and private Chris- 
tians of other churches. "Such an event," says Dr. Mason, "it is 
believed, had never before occurred in the United States." It was 
in part a reaction against the unscriptural form of close communion 
which existed between the Calvinistic Churches. The Associate 
Reformed Church was founded in the union of two branches of 
Secession in Scotland, and from the Reformed Presbytery. The 
posture of matters testified to five divisions, all Calvinistic — all 



dr. krauth's essay. 4 1 

Presbyterian — but not only separate and exclusive, but hostile com- 
munions. It was a shameful confession of separatistic tendencies, 
but a mere communion, with the cause of their separation, or want 
of cause, unconfessed, helped matters very little. 

The movement of Dr. Mason, however, was the expression of 
feelings widespread, strong, and growing. From the first quarter 
of the Nineteenth Century there has been a general breaking down 
of old landmarks in this country. Popular and influential forms 
of embodying Union sentiment have become more and more 
common. We have Sunday-School and Tract Unions, Union Re- 
vivals, Union Prayer Meetings, the Evangelical Alliance, Young 
Men's Christian Associations, all involving compromise on the 
principles of individualism, and all tending to laxity and indiffer- 
entism. 

The world has been coming into the Church, with its easy-going 
policy. There has been a large influx of unworthy professors, a re- 
laxation of discipline, a spirit of social complaisance taking the 
place of principle. Under all these influences the Church has 
so lost her vitality that men of the world have begun not 
only to notice it, but to see something of its real causes. They 
tell us plainly that one of the greatest factors of the decline 
in church morals, has been the decline in fidelity to church doc- 
trine. Real morality must have its root in real faith. If the doc- 
trine of a Church be good, fidelity to it makes the doctrine a mightier 
force ; if the doctrine be bad, personal inconsistency makes it worse. 
A consistent Protestant is better for his consistency, for it is the 
accord of a good life with a good faith. A consistent Romanist is 
better for his consistency, for the inconsistent Romanist is simply 
adding the lie of his life to the error of his judgment. The struggle 
of Indifferentism at first was against making the doctrines in which 
" the Evangelical denominations " differ, a test. But the struggle at 
this hour is against making any doctrines a test. Denominationalism 
with spread sails filling in the gale of Unionism, and without pilot 
or helmsman, is bearing full upon the rock of absolute individualism. 
When that rock is fairly struck, the vessel will go to the bottom. 

III. THE RELATION OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH, DE FACTO 
AND DE JURE, DEFINED. 

The question of the relation of the Lutheran Church in fact, to 
the denominations, must be a question involving what is in fact 



42 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

called the Lutheran Church, whether it be rightly so called or not. 
The question of fact covers what exists in fact in the Lutheran 
Church, whether that existence keeps itself in harmony with right 
principle or not. It involves the de facto relations of what is de 
facto called the Lutheran Church. This is the preliminary part of 
the total question. 

When, however, we come to the real question — the heart of the 
whole question — the question of right relation, we consider the re- 
lation dejure, of what is called the Lutheran Church dejure, and 
with which relation the Lutheran Church de facto ought to coincide 
throughout. 

i. The Relation de facto. 

To the question, what are in fact the relations of the nominally 
Lutheran Church to the denominations around us, the answer must 
be that they are of the most multifarious and conflicting character. 

There are indeed a few principles so generally accepted that we 
may consider them as covering as far as they go, a ground of prac- 
tical harmony. All our Lutheran Churches now would reject from 
their altars those who avow the errors which directly tend to the 
destruction of individual salvation — the damnable heresies in 
which men deny the Lord who bought them. There was a time 
when in parts of our Church, men suspected of the taint of So- 
cinian and Universal ist views were not subjected to discipline — 
days of uncontrolled Latitudinarianism, Rationalism, Syncretism, 
and Indifferentism. No conflict of views agitated the surface of 
the stagnant waters then. Those were the happy days, undisturbed 
by discussion, for which some now sigh as a golden age — -not that 
they would have error, but that they would have truth without a bat- 
tle. But perfect peace and perfect purity never can go together on 
earth: "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." Peace with 
God, peace with our own consciences—these we may have ; but 
peace with Satan, peace with heresy, peace with persistent ignor- 
ance, error, and unreasonableness, we can never have — and these 
will rise as long as man is man. 

Our Church is very much of a mind furthermore in relation to 
those parts of Christendom which, though they accept the General 
Creeds, are yet involved in very dangerous errors, as for example 
the Roman Catholic and the Greek Churches, and certain extrava- 
gant "Churchmen" who are ashamed of Protestantism and of whom 



DR. KRAUTH S ESSAY. 43 

Protestantism is ashamed. We desire no official relation to them, 
but if we did we could not have it. Rome and the Greek Church 
refuse communion with each other and with the "Churchmen," and 
refuse it with us. 

But while those who are confessedly heretics and fundamental 
errorists are excluded from our pulpits and are theoretically excluded 
from our altars, there are usages in parts of our Church which weaken 
our discipline ; throw down the bar, and facilitate the approach to 
our altars even of the worst heretics and errorists, or of the most 
ignorant and deluded. 

History of Interdenominational Communion in the Lutheran Church 

in America. 

The history of this authorization of untested communion in our 
Church in America is very instructive. 

In the Agenda of the Evangelical Lutheran United Congregations 
in North America, 1786, the first published in this land; with the 
venerable names of the three Kurtzes, of Bager. Helmuth, Schmidt, 
Kunze, Heinrich Muhlenberg, Streit, Goring, and other worthies, 
with our old prince and patriarch, Heinrich Melchior Muhlenberg, 
Doctor of Theology and Senior of the Ministerium, at their head — 
the directions guarding the altar are very explicit. The Communion 
is to be announced from the pulpit at least eight, or if possible four- 
teen days before the administration, with a statement of the time 
when the people (die Leute) purposing to commune are to notify 
the pastor, and have their names recorded. The minister shall keep 
a register of communicants. In case the preacher discovers, by the 
notification of those designing to commune, that any one is living in 
enmity or in open scandal, and the pastor cannot himself adjust the 
difficulty, he shall call together the church council and determine 
who is guilty, that he may be called to account. On the day pre- 
ceeding the communion, all the communicants who have given this 
notification come together in the church. The practice is approved 
of reading from the pulpit, at this service, the names of those who 
have thus come together to confession. After the reading of the 
names, a verse is sung, and the minister, going before the altar, re- 
cords the names of those who for cogent (erheblichen) reasons have 
not been able previously to notify him of their desire to commune. 
Then follow the questions of the preparatory service. Should there 
yet be some who, early on the Sunday or festival, notify the pastor 



44 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

of their desire to commune — persons who have been unable for 
weighty (wichtigen) causes to come to the confession — the pastor has 
confession for them before divine service, and announces to them 
the absolution. 

This defines the relation of our Church in America to the ques- 
tion of intercommunion with a clearness to which comment could 
add nothing ; nor was there anything in the original usage of our 
fathers in this country fairly answerable to what is now practiced 
under the name of exchange of pulpits. 

In 1795 the first authorized Liturgy of our Church in the English 
language was set forth by Dr. Kunze, Senior of the Lutheran Clergy 
in the State of New York. It professes to be, and is translated from 
the German of the liturgical part of the Agenda of 1786. 

In 1797 appeared what called itself the Liturgy of the English 
Lutheran Church of New York, edited by George Strebeck, at the 
request of his congregation, and without any pretence of authority. 

The edition of the Liturgy of 1806 is Kunze's, with modifications 
by Ralph Williston, showing the tendency which ended in taking 
him into the Episcopal Church. 

The first Liturgy in our church in America which gave authority 
to an unguarded invitation to the Lord's Supper, is that published 
by order of the Synod of New York, in 181 4. At that time a 
negative avoidance of the fundamental doctrines of Christianity 
prevailed in that body ; and men suspected of doubt, if not 
actual disbelief of the doctrine of the Trinity, the Deity of Christ, 
the eternity of future punishments, were not only not subjected to 
discipline, but were leading men in it. In the Liturgy of 1814 the 
minister uses the words : "In the name of Christ, our common and 
only Master, I say to all who own Him as their Saviour, and resolve 
to be His faithful subjects : ye are welcome to this feast of love." The 
Formula, left to the interpretation of those who heard it, would justify 
to all denominations, even the most heterodox, or indeed to those 
who are not members of the Church at all, an approach to our 
altar. 

In 1 81 8 appeared the German Liturgy of the Synod of Pennsylva- 
nia, in some respects, but alas ! not in others, a second edition of the 
Agenda of 1786. For the form of confession and preparation for 
the Lord's Supper, the same rubrics are in it as far as the end of the 
2d part of the 4th paragraph. The reading from the pulpit of the 



dr. krauth's essay. 45 

names of those who desire to commune is no longer mentioned. 
The fifth paragraph now reads : " Should there be some who early 
on the Sunday or festival notify their desire to commune, who for 
weighty reasons have not been able to come to the confession, the 
preacher speaks heartily with them in private, and they may yet be 
admitted to the communion." There comes then a second formula, 
but under the same rubrics. For the Lord's Supper there are three 
formulas. The first has no invitation. The second has the invita- 
tion nearly word for word, which we have given from the New 
York liturgy of 1814. All of them have the Rationalistic, Union- 
istic form of distribution, and the noble service of 1786 is not even 
given as one of the optional forms. The same is true of the Ger- 
man Liturgy published in the name of the Synods of Pennsylvania, 
New York and Ohio, 1842. 

The New York Formula of 181 4 is given in the Liturgy published 
by order of the Synod of South Carolina, edited by Dr. Hazelius, 
1 841. In the General Synod's Liturgy the invitation is made yet 
broader: " In the name of Jesus Christ, I say to all who sincerely 
love Him, ye are welcome to this feast of love." In the Liturgy 
recommended and published by order of the General Synod, 1847, 
the service for the Lord's Supper has four formulas. The first is 
without a general invitation. In the second the minister, in invit- 
ing the communicants to the altar, says : " This invitation is cordi- 
ally extended to all who are members in good standing of other 
Christian denominations. In the name of Jesus Christ, I say to all 
who sincerely love Him, ye are welcome to this feast of love." 
In the third formula the minister is authorized to use these words : 
"In the name of Jesus Christ, our common Lord, I say to all who 
have embraced Him as their Saviour and are resolved by His grace 
to live as becomes His true followers, ye are welcome to this feast of 
love." In the Liturgy published as part of the Book of Worship by 
the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod in North America, in the 
rubric of the Order of Confession, p. 79, it is said : " Those 
who intend to commune may report their names to the pastor after 
the notice has been given, and all who have failed to do this should 
be required to do it at the time of holding the preparatory service, 
that the pastor and council may know if any member neglects the 
Holy Communion. The names of the communicants should be re- 
corded in the church book. Immediately after the names have 



46 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

been taken down, the elders of the church shall examine the list, 
and if any suspended or expelled members shall have handed in 
their names, they shall be directed not to approach the sacred board 
until restored to their standing in the church." 

At the Supper, the minister giving the invitation says: "This 
invitation is cordially extended not only to all visiting disciples of 
our own communion, but also to all who are members in good 
standing of the Christian Church. In the name of Jesus Christ, I 
say to all who truly love Him, ye are welcome to this feast of love. 
We are all one in Christ." In the rubric of the Confession, and in 
this of the Supper, the irreconcilable systems and practices clash to- 
gether. The first is Lutheran, the second is not. 

Inferences. 
A study of these historical facts shows : 

1 . The original position of our Church in America was one of entire 
unity in theory and practice as regards intercommunion. It knows 
of none but Lutheran communicants at Lutheran altars, of none hav- 
ing the privileges of our Church without being subjected to its dis- 
cipline. 

2. The changes and departure from early usage took place when 
the patriarchs were gone, and was the result of a response on the 
part of Rationalism and Unionism within our Church, to Rational- 
ism and Unionism outside of it. 

3. The General Invitations of a later period are of such a char- 
acter as to destroy all the force and significance of the preparatory 
service. Those who hear the invitation being constituted judges in 
their own cases, members of heterodox churches, members of no 
church, expelled or suspended members of our own Church and of 
other churches, could come to the altar upon them. The general 
invitations mean chaos and contempt of the ordinance of the Lord. 

II. The Relations of the Lutheran Church dejicre. 
The consideration of the history and state of our relations de 
facto, has prepared us for the yet weightier question, What is the 
relation de jure of the Lutheran Church, genuinely such, to the de- 
nominations around us ? To this question we answer : 

First : The relations are such as involve and are in harmony 
with the principles on which the Lutheran Church vindicates her 
right to exist. She claims a right to exist because she is the Church 



DR. KRAUTH S ESSAY. 47 

in which faith takes its true place, as the central bond to the central 
and supreme object, Jesus Christ — Christus Solus, Fides Sola. She 
is the Church of Faith, as knowledge, assent and trust, divinely- 
given, wrought by the Holy Ghost through the Word and Sacra- 
ments, and justifying us as it lays hold of the merits of the all suf- 
ficient Saviour. She restored to the Church and taught to the 
nations that faith is a conviction which binds the conscience unre- 
servedly, and is not to be confounded with opinion. 

She claims a right to exist because she is a Biblical Church. 
Judging as she does of faith, our Church must emphasize the Ride 
of Faith, as the organ by which faith is generated. The Work of 
the Spirit, which is faith, and holiness through faith, will consummate 
itself by an organ adapted to its end. A sure faith must have a 
sure rule, a clear faith a clear rule. A faith to bind us mast have a 
rule to bind it. If the faith is to be sufficient for shaping mind, 
heart and will, the rule must be sufficient to shape the faith. That 
is not a divine faith which is not shaped by a divine rule, and that 
is not a divine, rule which does not produce a divine faith. It we 
are responsible for our faith to God, the rule by which he shapes 
it will be such as to demand and justify the responsibility. Hence 
our Church knows of no Rule of Faith from which we may depart, 
on a mere agreement to differ ; none which may yield to self-reliant 
reason ; none which may give way to fanatical revelations or fanat- 
ical interpretations ; none which a man may put aside passively on 
the ground that certainty cannot be reached, or is not worth the 
trouble it will give to reach it. She rests on the Word as clear, har- 
monious, self-interpreting, binding. 

Our Church claims the right to exist because of her confessional 
position. She clearly confesses the whole truth of God. In the ac- 
ceptance of the whole Word of God, this Confession, where the sense 
of that word is undisputed, is implicit. But wherever the sense of 
that Word is denied, obscured, perverted or ignored, her Confession 
is expressed and set forth in the Theses and Antitheses of her Sym- 
bols. Having a clear faith, resting on a clear rule, our Church can- 
not but emphasize a clear, unmistakable Confession of Faith — her 
witness to the true sense of God's Word, claiming derivative authority 
as the expression of that sense. Resting the obligation of the Con- 
fession on that ground, and her children being those who recognize 
the validity of that ground, she can do nothing, allow nothing, in con- 



4-8 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

flict with this conviction. The Confession must be the test of her pul- 
pits, the guardian of her altars, or, she, on her own showing, forsakes 
.the Word, abandons the faith, is disloyal to God. He who rejects 
her Confession of Faith rejects her Rule of Faith in its right teaching. 
The Confession of Unbelief makes the Rule of Faith a Rule of Un- 
belief. 

She claims a historical right to exist. Her history proves her 
divine origin and necessity; and as our Church has been needed in 
the past, so is she needed in the present. She is needed not only for 
her motherhood to her own children, but for the great wants of 
Christendom and of the world. She is needed as a witness to that 
doctrine which is conceded in terms by the whole Protestant world, 
but which is invaded primarily or by necessary inference by every 
system which is at war with ours — the doctrine of Justification by 
Faith. Inadequate views of the person and work of Christ; false views 
of election and reprobation ; of the means of grace, the Word and 
Sacraments ; the mode and subjects of Baptism ; the nature of the 
validity and efficacy of the ministry, — all are in conflict, covertly it 
may be, but really, with the true doctrine of Justification by Faith. 
Romanism and Ritualism directly assail it ; Rationalism destroys it; 
Fanaticism, sometimes with an affectation of zealotry for it, confounds 
justification by faith with justification by sensation, and leads the 
penitent to rest, not on the old, eternal promise, but on a new personal 
revelation. No Church holds the doctrine of Justification by Faith 
in that consistent integrity and harmonious relation within itself and 
with all other doctrines, in which it is held and confessed in the 
Lutheran Church. 

With the principles on which she rests her claim to be of right a 
church, all the acts of our Church for which she is fairly responsi- 
ble have accorded. Her pulpits and altars have been meant for 
those only who have borne the tests which she imposes, as neces- 
sary to separate those who give credible evidence of fidelity to the 
obligations of her pulpits and altars, from those who have never 
been subjected to these tests. Her name, her existence, her creeds, 
her Agenda, her standard divines of all schools, her whole history, 
up to this hour of anti-unionistic struggle against state-force in 
Europe and sect-craft in America, are witnesses to her position of 
fidelity. She can have no fellowship of pulpit and altar where there 
is no attested fellowship of faith; the attestation of felloshwip of 



DR. KRAUTH S ESSAY. 49 

faith is by public confession. She cannot accept the teachers of 
the denominations as her teachers, nor acknowledge their members 
at her altars, as her children, or as in the full fraternity of an incor- 
rupt faith. 

The Common Judgment of Christendom. 
Secondly: The relations of the Lutheran Church to the "evangel- 
ical denominations" around us are in accord with the common judg- 
ment of Christendom until the time of the decline of Faith and the 
rise of Unionism. They are relations justified by the official princi- 
ples and official acts especially of the evangelical denojninations them- 
selves. We narrow this point to the "evangelical denominations;" 
for whatever may be the exceptional extreme of looseness, the only 
open question to the larger part of our Church in regard to pulpit 
and altar fellowship is limited to those denominations around us 
which are somewhat vaguely styled "evangelical." 

The term is so vague that we can perhaps only make it distinctive 
by enumerating the principal bodies or parts of bodies embraced in 
it. It usually covers the Reformed, German and Dutch; the Pres- 
byterians of all the divisions ; the Baptists; the Methodists; the Con- 
gregationalists ; the Episcopalians (the Puseyistic portion excepted); 
the Moravians. There is a herd beside of small sects — small in 
every sense — who cover themselves with it, and who seem to think 
that the Evangelical element, like a homeopathic remedy, is poten- 
tiated by division. Their 

" wound is great because it is so small, 
And would be greater were it none at all." 
What ought to be the principles controlling the relations of the 
Lutheran Church to these denominations, the denominations them- 
selves, in their official character and expression, being the judges? 
We say "their official character and expression," by which we 
mean their Confessions, and the authorized exposition of them, and 
their Constitutions and Discipline, interpreted by their acts when 
they were yet confessedly faithful to their principles. For the 
official judgment of these denominations is not to be gathered 
from the lawless, careless, irresponsible usage of individuals, or 
even of a general usage which has crept in. Were there no other 
reason, we should have too much self-respect, and too much re- 
gard for law to avail ourselves of unauthorized invitations to take 
the pulpits cr approach the altars which are opened to us by irre- 



50 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

sponsible men, who in doing so violate their ordination vows, and 
treat with contempt the principles and order of the Church they 
pretend to serve. No minister of ours has a right to open his pulpit 
or altar without being able distinctly to show how he acquired that 
right — who gave it to him — and to prove that those who gave it 
to him had the right to give it ; and he has no right to give it ex- 
cept on the principle on which he got it. So have we no right to 
accept the invitation to pulpit or altar of others unless we know 
that they have the right to offer it. 

In point of moral consistency, not one of these denominations 
has the right to invite us as Lutherans to its pulpits and altars. 
They have names which in their historical definition mean some- 
thing which implies that we are so far wrong that they are obliged 
to form or maintain communions distinct from ours. They have 
Confessions which they have no right to have, unless they believe 
before God that they contain the principles which alone can deter- 
mine what must be taught as the very truth of God in the pulpit, 
and which if it is the very truth of God must not be rejected at the 
table. They all have modes of testing without which their own 
members cannot be admitted to their pulpits, and which they cannot 
consistently remit in our case. They all have modes of testing and 
admitting their own members to communion, and they have no 
right to admit us without these tests, or if they should so admit us, 
they should so admit their own. 

And in point of fact, a number of these denominations do con- 
sistently exclude us and others. No Episcopalian admits us to pulpit 
or altar without defying the Canons and the Book of Common Prayer ; 
a number of the smaller Presbyterian bodies exclude us and all but 
their own ministers and members from pulpit and altar ; the Baptists 
sometimes inconsistently admit us and others to their pulpits, but 
the great body of them consistently with their convictions exclude 
us and others from their altars. Whatever may be the laxity of prac- 
tice which has grown up, all the historical Churches of Christen- 
dom coincide in their real principles, which regulate the relation of 
pulpit and altar, with the very strongest and extremest held in the 
theory, or carried out in the practice of the most consistent part of 
the Lutheran Church. These coincident principles are : 

i . That pure doctrine and pure sacraments are essential marks of 
the Church. 



dr. krauth's essay. 51 

2. That a Church has no right to a being on its own showing ex- 
cept as it claims these marks. A Church which does not know that it 
has these marks does not know that it is a pure Church. A Church 
which does not believe that it has these marks has no right to be- 
lieve that it is a pure Church. 

3. That Confessions are mainly designed as modes of stating what 
are the features of doctrine and sacraments which the Churches 
which set them forth believe to be essential to the manifestation and 
maintenance of purity. 

4. That Churches are to be judged by and treated in accordance 
with their Confessions and the official interpretation of them. 

5. That communions opposed to the Confession of a pure Church 
are so far opposed to the truth itself, and so far not in fellowship 
with the pure Church itself. 

6. That subjection to the tests and discipline of a Church are es- 
sential to the right to enjoy its privileges. 

7. That avowed or implied rejection of the Confession, is in fact 
a rejection of the Church which accepts it, and should bar access 
to its pulpits and altars. 

IV. THE RELATION OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH TO THE DENOMINA- 
TIONS AROUND US VINDICATED. 

Objections to the Lutheran Position. 

We now propose to meet the most plausible objections which have 
been urged against the position of our Church. This we shall do in 
the form of negative definitions of our relation. In so doing we 
would say : 

First : That it is not a relation which refuses to make discrimi- 
nation. It does indeed put all on a common level so far as untested 
admission to pulpit and altar is concerned. So do all associations, 
with their distinctive official rights and privileges. So does the 
State with hers. Any man who is not a citizen cannot vote, or be 
elected to an office. Any foreigner who is not naturalized is debar- 
red from the distinctive rights of citizenship. Any one under legal 
age is denied access to the polls. And yet how untrue it would be 
to say that there is no discrimination on the part of our government 
toward those not under it — none of feeling, none of desire or hope 
of closer relationship, of friendship and of affinity — that she does not 
discriminate between the English and German, on the one side, the 



52 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Chinese and the Hottentot on the other. With some nations she 
cultivates close amity, others she treats with caution, others she holds 
at a distance. So does our Church maintain distinct and different re- 
lations to the various denominations around us She discriminates 
with reference to their grades of error and their grades of truth — the 
degrees of responsibility for schism connected with their origin and 
principles. She distinguishes between Churches and individuals who 
are friendly, appreciative, just, and kind toward us, and those who 
are coarse, ignorant and unjust. These discriminations are marked in 
our Confessions, which attest our sympathy with all truth, and with 
all men so far as they hold it — they are marked by our personal re- 
gard, by our recognition in our literature, and books of worship, and 
by all kindly tokens, which involve no compromise of principle. We 
sympathize with the remnants of Evangelical life in the Roman 
Catholic Church over against its corruptions; with genuine Protest- 
antism, as against Popery; with historical conservatism, sobriety, 
culture and religious principle, in whatever denomination, over 
against radicalism, fanaticism, coarseness, and impulsive sensation- 
alism — wherever they may be — and we cast our weight as a Church 
against all the evil and for all the good around us. Our practice 
simply subjects to one and the same test those born in our Church 
and those not born in it. 

Fundamentals. 
Second : The relations of our Church to the denominations 
around us, involve no rejection or ignoring of the just distinction 
bet ween fundamental and non-fundamental Our quarrels with error 
are not on questions touching Tobit's dog, or as to the capacity of a 
legion of angels to dwell in the eye of a cambric needle or hover on 
its point. The doctrinal terms of communion in our Church involve 
fundamentals only — doctrines which directly or by necessary conse- 
quence involve the integrity of that distinctive truth which Revela- 
tion is given to teach, and which the Church is to defend and extend, 
the impairing of which begins with destroying her well-being and 
ends in the loss of her life. What is fundamental truth ? The 
practical answer to this question in the only shape in which it comes 
up here is, Truth which is rightly made a term of teaching and of 
communion by embodiment in the Confessional standards, and the 
permanent official acts of the Church. Either the denominations 
regard their Confessions as statements of fundamental truth in this 



DR. KRAUTH S ESSAY. 5 3 

sense, or they do not. If they do, then we deal with them as, for 
ourselves, asserting that the Articles of our Standards are funda- 
mental in this sense, and that they hold that theirs are fundamental 
in the same way. If they do not, then they make what they confess 
to be unnecessary, non-fundamental things, terms of teaching and 
communion ; they are self-convicted of schism, and they render 
official church- fellowship with them, on our part, impossible. 

If they say, these may be necessary terms of permanent teaching 
and permanent communion, but not of occasional teaching and 
communion, they either assert, or their practice assumes, that what 
is wrong in principle as a constant thing, is right in principle as an 
occasional thing, which is as flagrantly illogical as to say that it is 
right to violate the moral law occasionally though it is wrong to do 
it constantly ; or they must say that it is not a question of princi- 
ple but of expediency, into which the occasional may enter. In 
this case they acknowledge that their confessions and their denom- 
inational life with them are based not on immutable verities but on 
expediency, and again they proclaim themselves sects and make it 
impossible for us to have church-fellowship with them. 

There may be, and there are, denominations which, without vio- 
lence to their faith, may admit that our Church holds fundamental 
truth, and is involved in no fundamental error , in regard to whom 
we are constrained to say that they do not confess all ficndamental 
truth, and that they are involved in fundamental error. From their 
definition of a doctrine, the error — oitr error, as they allege — may 
not be fundamental ; while from our definition of the doctrine, the 
error — their error — may be fundamental ; for a fundamental error 
must be arrayed against a fundamental truth. There can no more 
be fundamental error without a fundamental truth, than a man 
can have heart disease in his little finger, though disease in a non- 
fundamental may result from or be a proof of disease in the funda- 
mental, or spread from it and affect the fundamental. The ques- 
tion, In what respects the doctrine of the Lord's Supper is funda- 
mental, can not be settled without reference to the question, 
What is the Lord's Supper? The determination involves a 
definition. On the theory that the Lord's Supper represents 
something, but conveys nothing, is a symbol of grace, but not 
one of its means — that whatever there is in it, it has in common 
with a number of other things — granting this theory, it is clear 
that the importance of the Lord's Supper is relatively little, 



54 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

and that error in regard to it is comparatively innocuous. A truth 
or an error merely involving a figure of speech, a symbol, a single 
species of a genus, is not speculatively, nor practically, like a truth 
or error, involving a literal verity, a solemn reality, a something 
unique in its nature, design and blessings. A correct estimate or 
a mistake of the weight and value of an ounce of copper known to 
be such, is not like a right or wrong estimate about the weight 
and value of an ounce of gold. But it is a great mistake to think 
that a piece of copper is a piece of gold, or a piece of gold a piece 
of copper, or to confound skillful paste with pearls, or pearls with 
paste. When a dispute arises as to whether certain metal be cop- 
per or gold, certain jewels paste or pearls, he who is sure that the 
thing in dispute is copper or paste, cares comparatively little about 
the decision — it is non-fundamental to him. To him who is sure it 
is gold or pearl, the question is fundamental. It is no sacrifice to 
the one to risk his ignoble metal and counterfeit— but to the 
other to risk pure gold and a priceless pearl, is something from 
which he shrinks. A Zwinglian may admit that a Lutheran is not 
in fundamental error — a Lutheran cannot admit it in regard to a 
Zwinglian. To claim that what is but bread and wine really, is 
Christ's body and blood, may be a great absurdity — but it is the 
result of too absolute a trust in His word, it is the superstition 
of faith • but to say that what He really tells us is His body and 
blood, is but bread and wine, implies lack of trust in His word — it is 
the superstition of unbelief. But the astonishing thing is that those 
who reproach us for treating the doctrine of the Lord's Supper as 
fundamental, do themselves treat it in the same way. They treat it 
as fundamentally making it a part of their Confession, and in every 
one of the aspects in which our Confession considers it. It is in the 
XXXIX Articles, the Westminster Confession, and in every other 
great Protestant Confession, carefully stated, and guarded not only 
against Rome, but guarded against our Church. That is an official 
admission and claim that the doctrine is clearly revealed, that they 
hold it in its purity, that we are wrong in it, and that a clear confes- 
sion on the very points in which they are right and we are wrong 
is needful. Their own Confessions witness against them when they 
say that the Lutheran Church should not make her doctrine of 
the Lord's Supper a term of teaching and communion. 

They make their own doctrine such a term, and yet they have far 
less reason to do so than we. They have a metaphor to literalize; 



DR. KRAUTH S ESSAY. 5 5 

we accept a verity deep as the incarnation itself, a verity involving 
the incarnation and involved in it. 

It has pleased them sometimes to represent the whole matter as 
a dispute about mere phrases. We are agreed, they say, about the 
thing — but the contest is kept up about words. If this be so, and 
as we believe that our words are necessary to guard the thing, why 
will they not consent to our words ? To us it is no logomachy. If it 
be so to them, why do they not give up their "mere phrases?" And 
where did those, who attempt to make us odious for insisting on our 
faith in regard to the Lord's Supper, ever engage to be silent in re- 
gard to their own? The history of the controversy from the begin- 
ning shows how eager and persistent the Zwinglians and Calvinists 
were in urging their own doctrine and assailing ours. The plea for 
liberality to be shown on our part meant freedom for themselves to 
hold and teach error, without wholesome moral correction from 
us. It means all through, We will rob you of your faith if we can, 
and if we cannot, we will insist that you shall at least think it of lit- 
tle account. 

But while our relations discriminate between fundamental and 
non-fundamental, they are not meant to lower the dignity and value 
of any truth. We exalt fundamentals over non-fundamentals, but 
we lift both as truth over all error. The Church is not to treat with 
indifference any false teaching. 

Infallibility. 
Third : The relations of our Church to the denominations around 
us rest on no claim to infallibility. Infallibility is incapability of 
failing, and belongs to nothing human as such. The infallibility of 
the Church is the infallibility of the Church catholic or invisible; 
that is, this Church will always exist, and its very existence implies 
that it is infallibly secure from soul-destroying error, 5 — there cannot 
be a total lapse of the entire body of true believers from those essen- 
tials of faith without which the soul of man cannot be savingly knit 
to the Redeemer. Not only is this so in fact, but it is so of divine 
necessity. "One holy Christian Church must be and abide for all 
time." 6 So much of the Church invisible as is within the Lutheran 
Church is so far infallible. But this is equally true of every part of 



6 Gerhard Loci., Loc. xxiii. Cap. ix. 
6 Augsb. Confess., Art. vii, 



$6 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

the Church visible, and does not prove that there will always be such 
members within a communion bearing the name Lutheran, or in any 
of the communions bearing the names under which at present the 
Christian Church is classified. No particular Church is incapable of 
erring, of apostasy, decline and destruction. Many particular 
Churches have erred and perished, or have erred and still exist. "As 
the Churches of Hierusalem, Alexandria and Antioch, have erred, 
so also the Church of Rome hath erred, not only in their living and 
manner of cereronies, but also in matters of faith." 7 

The Lutheran Church, therefore, does not claim infallibility. She 
has not overthrown one Rome to set up another. She simply claims 
that in fact she has not erred in the Articles of Faith, and this free- 
dom from error she ascribes, not to herself in her human powers, 
but alone to the grace of God operating in His own appointed ways 
in accordance with His own immutable promises. 

The Church of Rome says : The Catholic Church is infallible ; 
the Church of Rome is the Catholic Church ; the Church of Rome 
is infallible. We say the entire Catholic Church, as entire, alone 
is infallible, and that simply in respect of all the fundamentals of per- 
sonal salvation. The Lutheran Church contains but a part of the 
Catholic Church, therefore she is not infallible. But our Church 
says also : Any part of the Church which seeks the truth in com- 
plete accordance with God's commands and promises will be kept 
from failing. The Lutheran Church has so sought the truth ; there- 
fore she has been kept from failing. 

It would be indeed a lamentable thing if the question of the claim 
of one thing, could be identified and confounded with the question 
of the fact of another thing. If to assert that in fact there has been 
no failure, is to assert in claim that there is infallibility, then it holds 
good of every individual, of every communion, and of the totality 
of communions. No man can claim not to have failed, for no man 
can claim infallibility. No man or Church can claim to have 
escaped failure in a single doctrine, for no man or Church is infalli- 
ble in a single doctrine. No Christian communion can maintain 
that its system as a whole or in any one part is free from error, for 
no particular Church is infallible, either in its total doctrine or in a 
single doctrine. Nor are all particular Christian Churches together 
infallible, even in the doctrine they hold in common or in any one 

7 XXXIX Articles of Church of England. Art. xix. 



DR. KRAUTH S ESSAY. 57 

article. You may multiply or divide the zero of fallibility any 
number of times, and it never makes infallibility. We end where 
we began. No Church on earth, by this line of reasoning, nor all 
Churches on earth together, can claim to have reached unmixed 
truth in whole or in part, for they are each and all fallible. 

It is a principle of law that no man shall be arrested on a general 
warrant, or condemned on a general charge. A man is neither seized 
nor convicted on the general charge of being a thief. His warrant 
and conviction must distinctly state what he has stolen, and he must 
have been convicted on many particular charges before he is even 
watched as a professional thief. No man has a right to treat our 
Church as the law would not permit him to treat a suspected thief. 
No man has a right to bring against our Church the general charge 
that she claims infallibility, without specifying when and where and 
how she claims it. The charge is wholly untrue. It is made gen- 
eral because an attempt to make it particular would at once reveal 
the falsehood. She does not claim infallibility. She distinctly 
repudiates it. 

But neither has any man the right to convict her on the general 
charge that she makes a groundless claim not to have failed. He is 
bound to specify in what she has failed. Put your finger on the doc- 
trine in which you pretend she has failed, and prove that she has 
done it, or grant her claim not to have failed. 

It is another sound principle of law that when testimony is con- 
formed to the proper demands of evidence, that where the witness 
cannot be shown to have deviated in any respect from the truth, no 
one has the right to attempt to set aside that specific testimony on 
the general ground that all men are liable to mistake. It must be 
shown in what he has made a mistake, or his evidence stands. In a 
court the power of testimony does not depend upon the assumption 
that it can be infallible, but on the evidence that in fact it can be so 
guarded as not to fail. 

Now to take up the particular points. We meet here as true 
Catholic Christians, so far as assent to the general creeds is con- 
cerned. It will not be necessary, therefore, to show that in reassert- 
ing the great doctrines of the General Creeds, our Church has not 
erred. We are here as Protestants. It will not therefore be neces- 
sary to argue that in what she asserts and denies over against dis^ 
tinctive Romanism, our Church has not erred. We are here as 
5 



58 . FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Lutherans in claim. Is it consistent with that name that we should 
think that our Church has erred in whole or in part over against any 
or all of the non-Lutheran Protestant systems ? We have supposed 
that their existence separate from us rested on the claim that they had 
not erred, where we have erred; and that on the other hand a Lutheran 
was one who held that we have not erred, where they have erred. They 
say that we have failed, and they have not. We say they have failed 
and we have not. They hold us responsible for our failures, as we 
hold them responsible for their own. But the whole attitude of all the 
Churches is really the same to the main question here. It is that 
they who rightly approach the Word of God, need not fail and will 
not fail ; that is, that in the nature of the case it is as really possible to 
avoid failure on the points of confessional difference as on the points 
of confessional agreement. The man who calls himself a Lutheran 
as a means of testifying his conviction that Lutheranism is wrong, is 
like a man who assumes the title of a Christian that all men may 
thereby know that he is a Jew. 

Nevertheless, there have been men on both sides the sea, who with- 
in our Church, accepting its privileges, the honor of its name, per- 
haps eating its bread, have met the challenge to specification. Some 
on the broad ground of Rationalism have said, The Lutheran Church 
has failed in the very fundamentals of religion — the doctrine of God, 
of Sin, of Salvation, and of the Saviour. She ought to have been 
Socinian and Universalist. There is no line possible if we accept 
individualism as the test. If a man can be a Lutheran who thinks 
our Church has failed, and whose guide to that in which she has failed 
is that he thinks so, where can you stop ? If we admit that it can 
be done with one article, who shall settle which one ? If with more 
than one, how many? If with some, why not with all? If with one 
set this year, why not with another set next year? And this is no log- 
ical imagining. This is the exact ground actually taken by the con- 
sistent men of the position of which we now speak. There is no 
firm ground between strict confessionalism, and no confessionalism. 
All between is hopeless inconsistency. 

We think that on every point on which our Church's faith has 
been challenged, it can be triumphantly sustained. But that is not 
the point here. Let us suppose the objector to say, "The Lutheran 
Church has failed on the person of Christ, on Baptism, and the Lord's 
Supper." He can only know she is wrong on these points by knowing 



dr. krauth's essay. 59 

himself what is right — what is the right doctrine, where hers is wrong. 
He says, in effect, "The Lutheran Church is not infallible, but I 
am" — or more modestly, " The Lutheran Church has failed, but I 
have not. The Lutheran Church is wrong, but I can set her right." 
The whole thing means, " She fails when she don't agree with me, 
and she is infallibly right when she does." It is the transparent 
self-conceit of individualism. 

It is very preposterous to say that our Church may without claim- 
ing infallibility justly claim not to have failed in ninety-nine points, 
and yet that to claim that she is right on the hundredth point is to 
claim infallibility. Especially is this the case if the hundredth point 
is reached by the same processes of interpretation by which the 
ninety-nine have been reached. If we may summarily dismiss the 
assertion of a doctrine of our Church, because our Church is not 
infallible, we can just as summarily dismiss the rejection of it by 
another Church, because that Church is not infallible. Infallibility 
is just as much required for unchallenged rejection as for unchal- 
lenged acceptance. He who can infallibly know every part of the 
wrong of every question, can infallibly know the right of it — for 
truth and error are eternal antitheses — correlates, the knowledge of 
which is one. 

"Methods" of Romanism. 
This whole style of dispensing with particular proof is exactly in 
the line and spirit of the so-called "Methods" of the Romish Po- 
lemics. One method was to reduce the whole question between 
Rome and Protestantism to the point of antiquity and novelty ; an- 
other was the method of challenging Protestants to proofs from the 
direct words of Scripture without inference ; another was the 
method involved in the question, Where was your Church before 
Luther ? another method was to assume that an inspired Rule was 
useless without an inspired interpreter ; another was the method of 
prescription and possession ; another was the method of urging the 
visible Church as the Catholic Church ; another was the method of 
safety — we Romanists deny that salvation is possible with you, you 
admit that it is possible with us ; there was also the method of au- 
thority, and the method of non-fundamental difference between 
Rome and Protestantism. These methods proposed to do away with 
all particular investigation, all proof from facts, by establishing or 
assuming some one theoretic, general principle. These methods 



60 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

with all their variety, had the common feature that they proposed to 
argue without reason, and to reason without argument, and can be 
reduced to the common foundation that Rome was to be made judge 
in her own case. 

The One Method. 

Now over against all these methods, genuine Protestantism has 
but one method — the method of examination — honest, thorough in- 
vestigation. "Search" and "Try" are divine injunctions. But 
it is a Romish method to the core, in defiance of the funda- 
mental principle of Protestantism, to get rid of the claim which a 
Church makes of purity in every one of her doctrines, not by par- 
ticular proof that some of her doctrines are false, but by a general 
appeal to fallibility. Fallibility is not failure. To show a general 
possibility of it in the nature of the case, is very different from 
showing an actual result. Fallibility implies that we may fail or 
may not fail. Possibility involves that a result may be or its con- 
trary may be. To settle which has actually been reached requires 
particular evidence. Our Church therefore proposes — not like 
Rome, by a claim to infallibility, but by a particular proof in each 
case — to show that she has not failed. The only way to confute 
her, if she can be confuted, is to take up the alleged mistake and 
prove it to be such. 

"Agnosticism" 

Our Church does indeed rest her relations to the denominations 
around us on her conviction that her system is in all its parts divine, 
derived from the Word of God and in accordance with it. And there 
are those who object to this position, not that they charge any spe- 
cific error on our Church — they waive even the consideration of that 
question- — but that in general they assume that we are not prepared to 
treat any system as throughout divine. A system, they say, may be 
divine, but we cannot know that it is. We see in part, we know in 
part. It is not probable that any one denomination has all the truth 
on the mooted questions. We think we are right. Others think they 
are right, and they are as much entitled to assert the possession of 
truth for themselves as we are for ourselves. The Church is still 
seeking : the Church of the unknown future may perhaps see things 
in their true light. 

This is bringing into theology what is a pet theory of the philoso- 
phy of our day under the title "Agnosticism" — which presses our 



dr. krauth's ESSAY. 6 1 

ignorance until it makes of it a sort of omniscience of negation. 
There are no such vices in the world as the affectations of virtue. 
Sanctimony apes sanctity, prudery modesty, masked egotism hu- 
mility — and on the basis of universal ignorance a man offers himself 
as a universal sage, and systematizes ignorance in many volumes. 

It is true that the Church on earth is imperfect, and that in her 
best life, and because of it, she ever grows. But she must have a 
complete life to have a constant growth. An acorn is not an oak, 
but the vital force in the acorn is that which makes the oak and 
abides in it. The question here is, Has the Church reached such a 
clear, binding faith on the great vital questions, not only of individual 
salvation but of her own highest efficiency and well-being, as justifies 
her in making them a term of communion and of public teaching ? 
The question is not whether she can reach more truth, or apply 
more widely the truth she has, but whether what she now holds is 
truth, and whether seeking more truth by the same methods she can 
be assured of finding it. 

The Old Testament has been teaching for thousands of years ; the 
New Testament has taught for two thousand years ; and yet it is pre- 
tended by those who profess to hold the clearness and sufficiency of 
Holy Scripture, that no part of the Church of Christ, not even that 
part which they declare they hold in highest esteem, has reached a 
witness which can commend itself to human trust, or can tell whether 
it has failed or not. Then there is not a man on earth who has any 
choice except as between systems either of certain or of possible error. 
He cannot build up unmixed truth anywhere. He cannot build up 
truth without building up error. He is sowing seed, and may be 
sowing tares. He is trying to pluck up weeds, and may be pulling 
up the grain. He cannot do the Lord's work without doing part of 
the devil's work. If the divine truth has no self-asserting power, 
sufficient to dispel doubt, how shall we reach any sure ground? 
Shall we say that all nominally Christian systems are alike in value, 
or that if they differ in this no one can find it out? This on its 
face seems self-confuting, but if we had to confute it, we could only 
do so by showing that God's Word is clear on the points on which 
Churches differ. If we do not believe that we are scriptural over 
against Rome, we have no right to be separate from Rome. If the 
Churches divided from us do not believe that they are scriptural, they 
have no right to be divided from us ; and if we have no assured con- 



62 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

viction that we have the truth, we have no right to exist. This Agnos- 
ticism is at heart unbelief, or despair, or indolence, or evasion of 
cogent argument. 

Romanizing Tendency. 
Of all Romanizing tendencies the most absolute is that which 
puts the dishonor on God's Word, and on the fundamental princi- 
ples of the Reformation, implied in this view. It may be safely as- 
serted that ecclesiastical bodies will not claim less for themselves 
than they are entitled to, and when it shall be said that no part of 
the churches of which the Reformation was the cause or occasion, 
even pretends to have an assurance of the whole faith it confesses, 
then will men regard Protestantism as self-convicted, and if they do 
not swing off to infidelity, will say : Rome at least claims to have 
the truth, and if truth is to be found on earth, it is more likely to 
be found with those who claim to have it, than with those who 
admit they have it not. To sum up, we say Rome is fallible, the 
Denominations are fallible, and the Lutheran Church is fallible : 
but the Romish Church has failed in Articles of Faith, so have the 
Denominations ; the Lutheran Church has not. 

Donatism. 
Fourth : Our Church in her relations to the denominations 
around us occupies no Donatistic attitude. "They condemn the 
Donatists," says the Augsburg Confession and Apology, "and others 
like them, who denied that it is lawful to use the ministry of evil 
men in the Church, and hold that the ministry of the evil is useless 
and inefficient," "and that men sin who receive the sacraments in 
the Church from unworthy, ungodly ministers." " Christ hath 
admonished us in his discourses of the Church, that we are not, be- 
cause we are offended at the private faults either of priests or people, 
to excite schisms or separation as the Donatists wickedly did." 
All this means that personal excellencies do not make official acts, 
nor do personal defects mar their validity. God's pure Word at the 
lips of a bad man remains God's Word ; error at the lips of a good 
man remains error still. The Word bears the power, the man does 
not. Pure gold in a polluted hand is pure gold still, and the brassy 
counterfeit, however clean and fair the hand which brings it, is 
brass still. In the proper sense of the word Donatism, to apply it to 
Lutheranism is not onlv unfounded but ridiculous. 



DR. KRAUTH'S ESSAY. 63 

Exclusiveness. 

That the Lutheran Church has no narrow segregative spirit like 
that of the Donatists, has no false exclusiveness, will be manifest to 
any one who knows her history, and her principles. We say a false 
exclusiveness, for there is a true exclusiveness which pertains to the 
nature of all truth, and most of all to Christianity, because it is the 
supreme truth. Because it is divine it is exclusive of all that is not 
divine. Those who separate themselves from us in our truth com- 
pel us to be separate from them in their error. 

"Exclusiveness," says D'Aubigne, " is a character of Lutheran- 
ism... This exclusiveness is necessary to unity. It must enter into 
the construction of the admirable machine prepared by the hand of 
the great Artificer three centuries ago. Exclusiveness is essential to 
the Church. Who was more exclusive than he who said, ' No one 
cometh to the Father but by me ; ' and again, ' Without me, ye can 
do nothing.' The Church ought to have a holy jealousy for the 
eternal truth of God ; for latitudinarianism is its death. The his- 
tory of all ages has demonstrated this fact, and nothing could 
demonstrate it more clearly than the history of our own. This ex- 
clusiveness was what was confided to the charge of Martin Luther... 
Luther believed that the corporeal presence was God's truth, and 
he went out of himself for that truth. Thou didst well, O great 
Luther ! . . .God gives us, what thou didst not understand, to treat with 
mildness those who differ from us in opinion. But God grant at 
the same time, as with thee, that the rights of the truth inspire us, 
and the zeal of God's house eat us up." And this is D'Aubigne's 
concession to the exclusiveness which he is attacking. 

The animus of Donatism, whether in its specific error or in its 
general narrowness of spirit, is not in the Lutheran Church, but in the 
fanatical sects, who confound the visible with the invisible, and by a 
coercive and legalistic discipline attempt and pretend to have a 
ministry and communion of none but saints. The pretences of a 
more rigid discipline have originated many of the sects, which, 
swelling at their first ardor till they burst the bulb, are found now 
on the ground frozen and fixed below zero. 

There is no body of Christians on earth more remote from all the 
pretences of Donatism, in its letter or its spirit, than the Lutheran 
Church. There is none which is so large and liberal in all things, 
which are really in the sphere of the liberty of the Church. Contrast 



64 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

her largeness of view in things indifferent with the pitiful littleness 
of ultra Puritanism on the one side, of Romish and Puseyistic Ritual- 
ism on the other. Mark her scriptural candor in regard to special 
forms of Church government as one example of a spirit illustrated 
in manifold forms. Our Church is inflexible in nothing but in the 
pure Word and pure Sacraments, and in what they involve. 

" Close Communion.'''' 

Fifth : The relations of our Church to the denominations around 
us are not those of a communion which is close, in any sense in 
which God's Word enjoins that the communion shall be open. A 
Christian communion must in some sense be a close communion to 
be Christian at all — close from heresy, avowed and organized 
error; close from refusal to receive the gospel with a teachable 
spirit ; close from those who reject the scriptural discipline and con- 
trol of the Church. The first communion was close communion. 
None were admitted to it but tested disciples — open confessors of 
Christ. No leaders or members of hostile or contesting organiza- 
tions were there. Judas was there, but Judas was a professor of 
discipleship; his profession was credible, his unworthiness unknown, 
except to the Searcher of hearts. It may be that our all-knowing 
Saviour would, in the very admission of Judas, teach us that we are 
to guide ourselves in discipline by what we know, and not by what 
we assume or conjecture the omniscient knows, whether of good or 
evil, in men. 

In the Apostolic Church all confessed rejectors of the Apostolic 
doctrine — all heretics, schismatists and fomenters of faction, or 
those who were joined with them, were cut off from the commun- 
ion of the Church. Heresy in the New Testament is whatever de- 
stroys the unity of the Church, and therefore by pre-eminence, 
false doctrine, which is its greatest divider. No Church received 
or retained communicants who were not subject to its discipline. 
As Apostolic pulpits were for Apostolic doctrine alone, so were 
Apostolic altars for those alone who were disciples of Apostolic doc- 
trine, and subject to Apostolic discipline. 

" Close Communion" in the Ancient Church. 
The ancient Church of post-Apostolic times rigorously confined its 
pulpits and altars to those who were attested and approved as in the 
unity of the faith. " In the primitive Church," says Lord Chancellor 



DR. KRAUTH'S ESSAY. 65 

King, in his classical work, "the Unity of the Church Universal con- 
sisted in an Harmonious Assent to the Essential Articles of Religion, 
or in an Unanimous Agreement in the Fundamentals of Faith and 
Doctrine. The corruption of that doctrine was a breach of that unity, 
and whosoever so broke it, are said to divide and separate the unity 
of the Church, or which is all one, to be schismaticks. If we con- 
sider the word Church as denoting a collection of many particular 
churches, its unity may (be said to) have consisted in a brotherly 
correspondence with and affection toward each other, which they 
demonstrated by all outward expressions of Love and Concord, only 
receiving to Communion the members of each other." 8 The conces- 
sion that two conflicting Christian churches can, with co-ordinate right 
and without the violation of fraternity, occupy the same locality ; 
was simply impossible to the early Christian mind. The separation 
of admission to privilege and of subjection to discipline would have 
been looked upon with horror. The discipline was strict — and ex- 
communication from one particular Church was confirmed all the 
world over. The inestimable right to communion in one Church in- 
volved a right to communion in all, on proper testing and authenti- 
cation. The cutting off from a communion in one was a cutting off 
from all. No Christian traveling was admitted to communion in any 
Church in which he might be sojourning, unless he had written official 
evidence of his being in full communion with the Church at home. 
There could be no "interdenominational" communion, for there were 
no denominations. The ancient Church knew of nothing between 
the Church on the one side, and sect, schism, heresy on the other. 9 
None were admitted to the Lord's Supper but those in full com- 
munion, and after the doors of the Church were carefully shut and 
watched, the deacon made a proclamation, describing the classes of 
persons who were not suffered to remain as communicants. These 
were the unbaptized, the catechumens, the ordinary hearers, unbe- 
lievers, and last of all, those of another faith, the heterodox, either 
reputed heretics or false teachers, separatists or those under discipline. 

Christian Love. 
Sixth : The relations of the Lutheran Church to the denomina- 
tions around it are not in conflict with true Christian love. On the 

8 Primitive Church, ch. ix. 

9 Baumgarten, Christlich. Alterthiimer (Bertram). Halle, 1768, 506-513. 



66 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

contrary they are in the highest harmony with it. She feels com- 
pelled indeed to contend for the truth, but it is in love. The 
wounds she gives are the faithful wounds of a friend. That is better 
than the deceitful kisses of an enemy. "Am I therefore become your 
enemy" says St. Paul, "because I tell you the truth?" "Have no fel- 
lowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove 
them." All error, heresy, schism, separatism, belong to the works 
of darkness Sectarianism is a work of darkness, though particular 
members of sects may be children of God. 10 

"Policy." 

Seventh : The proper relations of the Lutheran Church to the 
denominations around us are not really impolitic, are not in conflict 
with her duty of self-preservation and of self-extension. Of a 
fleshly policy which courts worldly success by deviation from prin- 
ciple, I need not speak, because, a Christian man, I address Chris- 
tian men. The presentation of an argument for such policy would 
be impossible to me, intolerable to you. Let such policy go. 
Whether it be the policy of the Devil or of Caesar, and whether 
Caesar be a single tyrant, or a mob of tyrants, let us stand with 
Christ against both Devil and Caesar. There was but one apostle who 
pursued a policy by which he made earthly gain of his relation to 
Christ. Let us not stand with him. 

In this aspect the case is too plain. Even the presentation of an 
argument against such policy would be worse than useless. But 
the policy consistent with true wisdom, and pure motive, high 
ends, and lofty means, and indeed the embodiment of them, is not 
in conflict with that attitude of our Church which, we have tried to 
show, consistency demands. When the Lutheran Church acts in 
the spirit of the current denominationalism she abandons her own 
spirit. She is a house divided against itself. Some even then 
will stand firm, and with the choosing of new gods on the part of 
others there will be war in the gates. 

No seeming success could compensate our Church for the forsak- 
ing of the principles which gave her being, for the loss of internal 
peace, for the destruction of her proper dignity, for the lack of self- 
respect which would follow it. The Lutheran Church can never 
have real moral dignity, real self-respect, a real claim on the rever- 
ence and loyalty of her children, while she allows the fear of the de- 

10 See Theses on the Galesburg Declaration. 



dr, krauth's ESSAY. 6"] 

nominations around her, or the desire of their approval, in any 
respect to shape her principles or control her actions. It is a fatal 
thing to ask, not, What is right ? What is consistent? — but, What will 
be thought of us ? How will the sectarian and secular papers talk 
about us ? How will our neighbors of the different communions 
regard this or that course ? Better to die than to prolong a miser- 
able life by such compromise of all that gives life its value. This 
dangerous tendency has been fostered by some parts of our Church 
accepting pecuniary aid from denominational sources. They have 
been taking bribes, and selling a sort of control to those whose 
charity they accepted. Then comes naturally the next Scene in 
the Farce — the benefactors are implored not to impute to the mild, 
liberal part of our Church (which accepts sectarian alms) what is 
really the spirit only of a few bigots unworthy of the name of 
Lutheran. We have among us a sort of charity which not only does 
not begin at home, but never gets there. It is soaring and gasping 
for the Unity of Lutherans with all the rest of the world, but not 
with each other. It can forgive all the sects for assailing the truth, 
but has no mercy for the Lutherans who defend it. 

When there is official fellowship between those who hold the 
higher and positive position, and those who hold a lower and nega- 
tive one, the communion is always to the benefit of the lower at the 
expense of the higher. For however the holders of the higher view 
may protest as to their personal convictions, the act of communion is 
regarded as a concession that the convictions, if held at all, are not 
held as articles of faith, but only as opinions. If a Socinian and a 
Trinitarian commune, each avowing his own opinion as not 
changed, nor involved, which cause is hurt and which benefited ? 
It looks equal; but Socinianism, whose interest is laxity, is advant- 
aged, Trinitarian ism is wounded. It gives fresh life to error, it 
stabs truth to the heart. 

Contact imparts disease, but does not impart health. We catch 
small-pox by contact with one who has it, but we do not catch 
recovery from one who is free from it. The process which tends to 
the pollution of the unpolluted will not tend to the purification of 
the evil. " If one bear holy flesh in the skirt of his garment, and 
with his skirt do touch bread or pottage, or wine or oil, or any 
meat, shall it be holy ? And the priests answered and said, No. 
Then said Haggai, If one that is unclean by a dead body, touch any 



68 FREE LUTHERAN DIET 

of them, shall it be unclean ? And the priests answered, // shall 
be unclean" 

When the transfer is made easy between wealthy denominations 
and poor ones, many go out of the poor church into the rich one, 
few from the rich to the poor. The Lord chooses the poor of this 
world ; but many of his nominal disciples seem to think they can 
— so far at least— improve on their Master's example. 

When the transfer is made easy between churches of great social 
pretension and those of humbler claims in the world of fashion, the 
people who are feeling after social recognition go into the fashion- 
able church, the people of the fashionable church stay where they 
are. 

When churches which have the nationality, language, tradition, 
modes of feeling and of acting, of a country, are separated by 
low walls from churches of other nationalities, largely using another 
tongue, having another culture, the churches of the country absorb 
those that are foreign. To introduce the language of the country 
into the foreign churches reaches but a part of the difficulty, and 
brings in another. For back of the language, to those to whom it 
is native, are the whole history, and life, and literature it embodies ; 
while the foreign church must use the lip of one land for a soul and 
heart which are of another. Our Church may speak English. It 
is well. But if she stops with that, her new tongue will decoy her 
into a new life. All living tongues have living hearts back of 
them and carry us out into the current of their own life. Our 
church is not to become the handmaiden of the language, instead of 
making it her own handmaiden. It will in that case not be the old 
Church getting a new language, but the new language transforming 
her into a new Church — not the Church mastering the English, but 
the English mastering the Church. Even in their mistakes on the 
point of language, our fathers in America were not the absolute 
incapables it is now the fashion to consider them. It was the 
English life of the land, rather than the English tongue, which 
swept away thousands of our Church's children. 

When churches whose principles involve lax doctrinal obligations 
come in contact with those whose principles involve strict doctrinal 
obligations, but whose practice is at war with their principles, the 
lax with the lax practice overcome the churches which have strict 
theory conjoined with lax practice. For such churches are burdened 
with the odium of their strict theory without its advantages, and 



DR. KRAUTH'S ESSAY. 69 

get the weakness of laxity without sharing its popularity. Men 
who aim at combining in a third view the strong points of conflict- 
ing systems, generally get the weakness of principle from the wrong, 
and the unpopularity of practice from the right. They think they 
can sit on the two stools — in fact they fall between them. 

But when a church has right principles and is steadfast to them, 
no matter what denominations are arrayed against it, it will have 
true success. It will be dear to God, precious to those who love 
Him, a safe guide of sinners to the Saviour, and will build up saints 
on their most holy faith. It will be a conservator of sound doc- 
trine, of right government, of healthy discipline. It may not be 
fashionable, rich, or popular, but it will be a blessing to the world 
and a nursery for heaven. 

Adjourned, 



SECOND SESSION. 



December 27th, 2:30 p. m. 

Prayer by President Sadtler, D. D., of Muhlenberg College. 

The Diet proceeded to the discussion of Dr. Krauth's paper. 

Rev. D. P. Rosenmiller (General Synod) said that the relation of 
the Lutheran Church to other denominations who hold the funda- 
mental doctrines of the Gospel, should be one of kindness and 
charity. They are the different branches of the same family of the 
living God. The name Lutheran, applied to our Church, was an 
accident, resulting partly from its enemies. The original name was 
Evangelical ; for it was no new organization, but the Church sepa- 
rated from the errors of the Papacy. Even the Augsburg Confes- 
sion came into existence accidentally. Had there been no indict- 
ment brought by the Papal Court, against the friends of evangelical 
religion, there would have been no occasion for the Confession. In 
that case, the Bible would have been our only Confession. For the 
main point with Luther was to give the Church the Word of God 
as her guide ; and hence all who hold it sincerely, without gross 
heterodoxy, should receive charity from us. 

REMARKS OF REV. C. W. SCHAEFFER, D. D. {General Council.) 
The relations of Lutherans to the members of the denominations 
around, as far as these relations are personal or social, ought to be 
kindly, and controlled by Christian principles. But when these rela- 
tions enter into the sphere of the Church , and influence the Confes- 
sion of Christian doctrine, then the first and highest aim of 
Lutherans should be to maintain the pure doctrine of the Word, as 
expressed in the Confessions. 

The doctrine of the Sacraments comes up so often that I would 
if I could, avoid it now. But it affords such a good illustration of 
my meaning that I venture to introduce it. 

(70) 



DISCUSSION. 71 

The doctrine of the denominations around us is to the effect, that 
the chief element, the distinguishing characteristic of the Lord's 
Supper, is a mere human act, a devout exercise on the part of com- 
municants, in which they bring to the table a grateful remembrance 
of Christ, and by eating and drinking show forth His death. If 
this, which of course is true, were the whole truth, then the Luth- 
eran Church ought to, and without doubt, would, most heartily and 
devoutly, unite in the Holy Supper, with all evangelical denomi- 
nations, with all who love the Lord ; since in respect to a grateful 
remembrance of Christ and a devout showing forth of His death, 
there can be no difference between those who believe in Him and 
love Him. 

But the L utheran Church receives from the divine Word, and re- 
peats in her Confessions, a very different doctrine, to the effect, 
that the Lord's Supper is first of all a divine act, that the Lord 
Himself is the chief actor, that its distinguishing characteristic con- 
sists of what the Lord gives us, and we only receive ; that what He 
gives us is, as He Himself says, His body and His blood for the 
forgiveness of our sins, and that what He thus gives us in the bread 
and wine, is not given and cannot be received in any other place or 
time or way, than at the Supper of the Lord. 

Now this is denied by the denominations around us. Some state 
their denial in one form, some in another. Yet though differing 
among themselves, they all agree in a decided and positive denial of 
the doctrine of the Lutheran Church. 

Supposing then that the Lutheran Church is bound to maintain 
not human opinions, but what it accepts as the doctrine of the divine 
Word, how can Lutherans unite, in celebrating the Lord's Supper, 
with denominations that ignore and deny what the divine Word de- 
clares is the distinguishing feature and controlling element of the 
Supper itself? Such an act would be an acknowledgment, on their 
part, that the nature and the doctrine of the Holy Supper is a mat- 
ter of no consequence, and that we reach the full measure of it 
when we observe it as a mere mnemonic act of our own. In de- 



72 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

dining such communion, Lutherans do not deny or question the 
evangelical character of denominations around them; they seek 
only to testify their fidelity to the doctrine of the Word. 

These low views of the denominations, tend strongly, and quite 
naturally, to reduce the Holy Supper from its rightful prominence in 
the Church's life, down to the common level of ordinary devotional 
exercises. I find in a theological work of a distinguished divine, of 
illustrious name, occupying an honorable position in a prominent 
Seminary of the Presbyterian Church, the following conclusion ar- 
rived at : — ''It follows that in the same sense in which it is done 
at the Lord's Supper, believers do receive and feed upon the body 
and the blood of Christ, at other times without the use of the sacra- 
ment, and in the use of other means of grace, as prayer, meditation 
on the Word, etc., etc." With such views, of course, the Lutheran 
Church can have no sympathy or fellowship. 

REMARKS OF REV. F. W. CONRAD D. D. {General Synod.) 
We shrink from engaging in this discussion in ten minutes, when 
six hours would be inadequate to do justice to it. We do not ex- 
pect ever to be "educated up" to the positions taken in the paper 
just read. The degree of unanimity of sentiment which it requires, 
is practically unattainable. The multiform character of revelation, 
and the diverse influences under which Christians have been reared 
and lived, renders absolute agreement on all points impossible. To 
each believer, the Bible is given, and he is directed to search it — to 
every disciple of Christ, the Holy Spirit is promised, and he is per- 
mitted to pray for His enlightening influences. Through these and 
other agencies and instrumentalities, Christians form their religious 
opinions. But while true believers may and do thus come to an 
agreement on fundamental doctrines, they will, in all probability, 
differ on non-essential points. This occurs in spite of their sin- 
cerity, in consequence of the deterioration of the human reason. 
Their religious mistakes must not, therefore, be regarded as willful 
errors, neither should they, on this account, be classed with heretics 
and excluded from Church fellowship. 



discussion. 73 

Martin Luther maintained the supreme authority of the Scriptures, 
and claimed the right of private judgment in interpreting them. 
He, accordingly, exercised the liberty conferred by Christ on every 
believer, and formed his religious opinions in independence of popes 
and councils. His coadjutors exercised the same right, and formed 
their own religious opinions. On all essential points they agreed ; 
on many non-essential ones they differed ; and yet they extended 
the hand of fellowship to each other. 

In the exercise of the same rights and the enjoyment of the same 
liberty, we, Lutherans in America, have formed our ecclesiastical 
opinions. On all undisputed fundamental doctrines we agree ; on 
manifestly non-fundamental ones we differ. Let us not, on account 
of our differences, withhold, but on account of our agreements, ex- 
tend fellowship to each other. 

Various denominations have arisen, in the providence of God, in 
different ages and lands. They constitute the pure parts of the one 
holy catholic Church. They are entitled to the prerogatives of true 
churches of Christ, because they adopt the (Ecumenical creeds, and 
they do not become heretics, unworthy of pulpit and altar fellowship, 
because their particular creeds differ in some points from ours. 
While, therefore, we can accept the positions taken by Dr. Krauth 
on Fellowship as a rule, we cannot accept his exclusive interpreta- 
tion of it. We, on the contrary, hold that it is right and proper 
to grant pulpit and altar fellowship to the ministers and members of 
orthodox Protestant churches, in exceptional cases, as a matter, not 
of right, but of privilege, and maintain that the extension of such 
fellowship is sustained by Christ's instructions, by apostolic example, 
by the practice of the primitive Church, and by the general judg- 
ment of the Christian world. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. A. BROWN, D. D. {General Synod.) 

I would not say anything on the paper read, did I not fear that 
my silence might be misconstrued into an endorsement of all that 
it contains. Whilst there is much with which I might agree, it con- 



74 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

tains assumptions and looks to conclusions to which I can by no 
means yield my assent. By the very terms employed — though not 
in the subject as originally published — " the denominations around 
us" omitting "other," it is assumed that the Lutheran Church 
has claims as a Church of Jesus Christ, which cannot be accorded 
to these denominations. To set up such a claim, it seems to me, is 
to ignore God's providential dealings with His Church, and also to 
refuse to recognize the manifest tokens of His presence and favor. 
Might not God choose to reform the Church and restore the pure 
Gospel and ordinances, without necessarily employing the same 
human instruments, or giving to the work precisely the same form 
in every respect ? As He chose Luther and his co-laborers in Ger- 
many, may He not have chosen other instruments in England, 
Scotland and elsewhere ? and what right have we to sit in judgment 
on His and their work? Have we a right to say that other denom- 
inations (I use the word " other") are not part of the true Church 
of Jesus Christ, and to be treated by us as such ? 

It is not, and will not be, denied that in these other denomina- 
tions, there are thousands and tens of thousands of humble, devoted 
believers. It is not, and will not be, denied that these denomina- 
tions have furnished a full share of distinguished scholars and theo- 
logians, of self-denying pastors and missionaries, and of zealous and 
devoted laborers in every department of Christian activity. They 
sometimes put us to shame by their enlightened liberality and zeal 
in the cause of our divine Redeemer. In this country especially 
they have taken the lead and outstripped us, in the work of preach- 
ing the Gospel to the millions at home and abroad. 

Now I cannot see by what right, or on what ground we can refuse 
the fullest recognition to these denominations that are so manifestly 
owned of God, and whose labors are crowned with so much favor. 
If these Churches are true Evangelical Churches, and their members 
are true members of the body of Christ, who are we that we should 
undertake to legislate and prescribe the terms on which we will re- 
cognize those whom the Master owns, or set up arbitrary conditions 
of relationship among the Churches of Jesus Christ ? 



discussion. 75 

There is something utterly incongruous and unscriptural in a true 
disciple of Christ, an acknowledged subject of Christ's kingdom, 
with the genuine "marks of the Lord Jesus" being denied his 
rights and privileges in that kingdom. In the Apostolic Church a 
Christian was a Christian, and a subject of Christ's kingdom was 
recognized wherever he went among his fellow Christians. Even 
citizenship in the Roman empire carried with it all the rights and 
immunities of citizenship, wherever the Roman empire extended its 
domain or asserted its authority. The simple utterance, "lam a 
Roman citizen," was enough to claim protection in the most sacred 
rights. Wherever the tread of the Roman legion was heard, or the 
banner bearing the Roman eagle floated, there were secured the 
rights of Roman citizens. The kingdom of Christ is more widely 
extended, and offers to its subjects privileges superior to those of 
imperial Rome. This kingdom is marked by no geographical 
boundaries ; it is confined to no country or clime or race ; in it 
" there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there 
is neither male nor female : for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." Can 
it be that subjects of this kingdom, whose dominion is from sea to sea, 
and from the river to the ends of the earth, have a more restricted 
exercise of their rights than the subjects of the smallest and most 
petty earthly power ? Must a Lutheran Christian be acknowledged 
only among Lutherans, and Reformed only among Reformed, and 
so this universal kingdom of Christ be dwarfed or divided until only 
those are recognized who belong to our own particular party or sec- 
tion ? Shall we as Lutherans set up the absurd claim of being the 
peculiar chosen people, and treat the [other] denominations around 
us as aliens? 

I am not concerned just now with the question of responsibility 
for the divisions in the Christian Church. They exist as a matter of 
fact. They have existed for centuries. The great Head of the 
Church has not refused to acknowledge these different Churches or 
to bestow upon them His benediction. True, He has prayed that 



j6 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

all might be one. And so has He prayed and taught us to pray, — 
11 Thy kingdom come." Shall we refuse full recognition to other 
denominations because not in all respects one with us, or deny His 
kingdom because it does not yet come in full power and glory ? 

It seems to me unfortunate that the discussion on this subject has 
taken so one-sided a turn, and that it has been mainly the discussion 
of "pulpit and altar fellowship" Indeed, it is narrowed down very 
much to the question of altar fellowship, or allowing others to com- 
mune with Lutherans, or Lutherans extending the Sacrament of the 
Lord's Supper to those of other denominations. This is not the 
time nor the place for a full discussion of this subjeet. Individual 
congregations or denominations may adopt such regulations not in- 
consistent with the letter or spirit of the New Testament, as they 
may deem best calculated to secure the purity and promote the wel- 
fare of the Church. But they should be very careful not to exercise 
a right, with which their Lord has never invested them. The Apostle 
Peter has set us a good example in this respect, and announced a 
principle which may aid in settling a point which seems to sorely 
vex some. Averse as he was to recognizing any except Jews as pro- 
perly belonging to the Church, when he saw what the Lord was 
doing, he said: " Can any man forbid water, that these should not be 
baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we f ' If the 
Holy Ghost is bestowed on others as well as on us, if they give proof 
of the presence and grace of the Spirit, as well as we, who can for- 
bid to them the use of the Sacraments? There is no authority in 
God's Word for this wide separation between what God has joined 
together in this Church — the Sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's 
Supper — and throwing the one so widely open, that almost any bap- 
tism is recognized, Romish or Protestant, clerical or lay, and then 
hedging about the table of the Lord so that none but a Lutheran 
may approach a Lutheran altar. Against this spirit of exclusivism, 
we ask, in the language of Peter, "Can any man forbid water?" — or 
can any man forbid the administration of the Sacraments to those 
who " have received the Holy Ghost as well as we ?" 



discussion. 77 

Against the exclusivism of this paper, as well as against the sec- 
tarianism of this age, we must express our most decided objection. 

The discussion was participated in also by Revs. L. E Albert, D. D., 
F. Klinefelter and S. R. Boyer. Their remarks have not been fur- 
nished for publication. The discussion was closed as follows : 

REMARKS OF REV. C. P. KRAUTH, D. D. LL. D. {General Council) 

In the theme accepted by me, as stated to me — and properly 
stated — the Lutheran Church is not coordinated as one de- 
nomination with others. Her moral right to live turns upon the 
proof that she is a Church with the New Testament essentials — 
doctrine pure in every part, and right sacraments. Those who cut 
her off from them, or cut themselves off from her fellowship, and 
erect their hostile denominations, either reject the truths she holds, 
and in rejecting truth are heretics or errorists, or if they concede 
that our Church holds the divine system, are schismatists in contin- 
uing in voluntary sundering from her. 

If you once say sectarianism is venal, sects are good because 
there are good people in sects, where will you stop ? What lovely 
people there are in the Church of Rome ; what characters of ex- 
quisite beauty, to all human observation, there are among Socinians ; 
what pathos of sweetness strikes us at times, even amid Pagan- 
ism ! The great world has men and women who put to shame false , 
or careless, or conventional, Christians. Is slavery to be compro- 
mised with because some of the best of men have held slaves? 
Could we as patriots officially recognize, because of their private 
excellencies, citizens of a government at war with ours ? We recog- 
nize as cordially as any man, the personal virtues and achievements 
of Christians everywhere ; but if they feel bound in conscience to 
confess adversely to our Confession, to keep up denominations to 
build up that Confession, to withhold themselves from permanent 
communion with us • and to guard their pulpits against the constant 
preaching of the whole New Testament doctrine, — which is the 
doctrine of our Church — then do they bind us, on their own 
showing, to confine our pulpit to those who constantly preach what 
we are sure is the whole truth, and our altars to those who are the 
disciples, imperfect it may be, but willing, of that truth. We have 
common terms for all, and if we relinquish a system of tests and 
safeguards for others, we must relinquish them for ourselves. 



7 8 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

This style of reasoning defies the universal judgment of historical 
Christendom, which with unbroken unanimity maintains that unity 
in confessed doctrine is an essential element of Church unity. For 
this we are asked to substitute a unity of good people, or people we 
conjecture to be good, without reference to their faith. It is the 
compendious method of the poet — 

" He can't be wrong, whose life is in the right." 

Throughout the argument we are meeting, there runs the fallacy 
of confounding the Church as invisible, with the Church as visible. 
Who form the Church invisible it is for Him, who alone sees the 
invisible, infallibly to judge. In the Church visible, we must have 
not wavering and individual surmises, but carefully considered and 
uniform principles of test and discipline, resting on what we can see 
and know. External profession of the pure faith, made credible by 
the acts of men, is the only test to which we can bring the claim of 
internal possession of it. The eloquent description of the Roman 
Empire has no applicability to the visible Church militant, either as 
it is in fact, or in the divine description of its state on earth. In 
the mouth of a Romanist, it would have consistency : in the mouth 
of a Protestant it has none. The Roman Kingdom was a kingdom 
which imposed the cross ; the Kingdom of Christ is a kingdom which 
bears the cross, and will bear it till her King comes again. Yet 
even a Romanist would hardly fall into the confusion of the dead 
and the living, the nominal and the real, which gives plausibility to 
the illustration. The utterance, "T am a Roman citizen," made 
indeed a claim to Roman rights; but the rights were not conceded till 
the claim was tested by modes of uniform principle. Roman privi- 
lege were bound up with subjection to Roman law, fealty to Roman 
rules, and fidelity to Roman duty. What we are discussing is the 
privileges of Luther a?i pulpits and of Lutheran altars. If it is secta- 
rian to have these we should abandon them ; but if it is sectarian to 
have others, the others should be abandoned. The Saviour and 
His Apostles, and the early Church, knew of but one communion. 
All outside of that was sect or schism. Christendom should be one 
communion with one faith, and one confession — its faith the faith of 
the Gospel — its confession the unmixed witness of that faith. This 
is the faith we believe our Church has. This is the faith she em- 
bodies in her Confession. This position allows of no compromise. 
If it is false we must abandon it, and let our Church go. If it is 



discussion. 79 

true we must stand by it, and all who wish fellowship with us, must 
come to it. This is no egotism of Church vanity ; it is consistency 
with principle. 

It is no fault of ours that others have thrown forth sectarian ban- 
ners. We did not go out from them. They have gone away from 
us, or have followed those who abandoned us. Dr. Brown claims 
for them the right to forsake us, to repudiate our distinctive faith, 
and yet to have untested all the privileges of our own faithful chil- 
dren. He proposes to accept their claim as their proof — yet if their 
claim to be right is valid, ours cannot be. Contradictions cannot 
both be right. 

It is surprising, too, that he fails to see that in all the points here 
involved there is no parallel whatever between baptism and the 
Lord's Supper, to say nothing of the pulpit. The adult seeker of 
baptism from us is not a member of another communion. The child 
who seeks it through the parents is not of another church-household. 
Does any one pretend that the tests of fitness for baptism are 
throughout identical with those of fitness for the Supper ; or will any 
one say that consistency requires that we grant that every one whose 
baptism we acknowledge as valid, is thereby shown to be entitled to 
come to our communion? 

When a protest is made at the close against sectarianism, the 
whole line of previous thought seems to imply that what is meant is 
not the sectarianism which makes sects, magnifies their virtues, veils 
their mischiefs, ignores their crimes, and treats the divisions they 
create as if they were not destructive of unity. It rather seems as if 
the sectarianism which the speaker had in view is the fidelity to prin- 
ciple which resists sects, and the sect-spirit, most of all when they 
come in the pretences of a spurious unionism, and shuts upon them 
the pulpit and altar. In such a construction of sectarianism the re- 
lations of our Lutheran communion to the denominations around us 
would be, not the relations of a Church to sects, but of a sect to 
Churches. 

The following paper was then read : 



"THE FOUR GENERAL BODIES OF THE LUTHERAN 
CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES: WHERE- 
IN THEY AGREE, AND WHEREIN THEY 
MIGHT HARMONIOUSLY CO- 
OPERATE" 

REV. J. A. BROWN, D. V., 

Professor of Doctrinal Theology in the Theological Seminary of the General 
Synod, Gettysburg, Pa. 

The "four Bodies" referred to are " The General Synod of the 
Evangelical Lutheran Chitrch in the United States ;" " The General 
Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in North America;" 
" The General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in 
North America;" and " The Sy nodical Conference of North 
America" 

THESE are separate and distinct bodies of Lutherans at present, 
some of them once united and still holding much in common, 
yet differing so far as to maintain each its own organization and in- 
dividual existence. Their separations are in part the result of local 
and temporary circumstances, and in part of deeper lying causes. 
Each one has a history of its own, and each is now aiming to work 
out its own mission. Between some of them there maybe a greater 
affinity than between others, yet among them all are family like- 
nesses and strong points of sympathy and resemblance. Some of 
them may possibly be so little acquainted with each other, and others 
so unhappily alienated, as not to care to trace the resemblance or to 
acknowledge the relationship, but the truth will reveal itself, and 
even their speech bewrayeth them. All these Lutherans talk 
Lutheran, and sometimes indulge in what seems to outsiders a little 
like boasting over the great Lutheran Church, to which they claim to 
belong, and of which they are quite willing to be considered a part. 
The subject for our discussion is one concerning which there will 
very naturally be great diversity of sentiment ; and no treatment of 
it or conclusions reached, will likely prove satisfactory to all or 

(So) 



dr. brown's ESSAY. 8 1 

probably to even a majority of those present. The very fact of the 
existence of four such bodies, implies differences of some kind, 
and the question, "Wherein they agree" implies points in which 
they disagree; and so the other question: "Wherein they might 
harmoniously co-operate" implies difficulties in the way, or some 
things in which they are not able thus to co-operate. That such has 
been and still continues the case, all very well know. We do not at 
present harmoniously co-operate. 

But we are not now to search after the points of difference, or to 
see how much ground we can find for our separations. Our differ- 
ences have, no doubt, been magnified enough, so as to make our 
separation wider than need be — even wider than between us and 
those -who do not bear the same family name. We are now to look 
after some of the points of agreement, and, I suppose, to see whether, 
after all our bickerings and separations, we do not all belong to the 
same " household of faith," and whether we might not live together 
in unity and peace, and " stand fast in one spirit, with one mind, 
striving together for the faith of the Gospel." 

Agreement between individuals and Churches in religious matters 
is relative and not absolute ; and it may be well to bear this in mind 
during this discussion. As God has made no two faces absolutely 
the same, nor any two souls absolutely alike, though all in His image 
and likeness, so no two Churches are absolutely alike, and no two 
members of any one of these four bodies are in perfect accord 
in thought, sentiment, feeling, purpose and action. It is not neces- 
sary nor desirable that it should be so. There may be absolute uni- 
formity or sameness in dead particles of matter, but genuine life is 
infinitely diversified. All that can be expected or desired is sub- 
stantial agreement, or such an agreement as will secure harmony of 
views, feeling and co-operation — according to the divine Word, 
"Keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace." When the 
apostle exhorts the Corinthians to "be perfectly joined together in the 
same mind and in the same judgment " he does not mean, as the words 
in the original do not, that they must all believe, and think and feel 
precisely alike — which would be practically impossible — but that there 
should be no such differences as would cause divisions and strife 
among them. It was a party spirit that he warned them against. If 
any are disposed to look for absolute agreement between all or any 
two of these bodies, as a condition of co-operation, they will look 



82 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

for what they will not find within any one of them, and for what they 
will search in vain anywhere in the Church on earth. Each of these 
four bodies, if candid, will admit that it is not free from very con- 
siderable diversity of views on various points, even of doctrine, and 
that some of the meetings of these bodies are not the most harmo- 
nious, nor the co-operation the most cordial. We are simply stating 
what every one knows, and it is one of the commonplaces of Church 
history, that ecclesiastical bodies are not always distinguished for har- 
mony of views and action. They are chasing a phantom, who expect 
to find this ideal of unity and agreement here on earth, which belongs 
only to a state of perfection in heaven. 

Using the term "agree" in its popular and also in its Scriptural 
sense, we may find many points "wherein these four bodies agree" 
some of them of more significance than others, but none of them 
entirely destitute of meaning and force. To a disinterested observer 
we have no doubt that these points are such as to make our disagree- 
ments appear strange, if not worse than strange. 

I. POINTS WHEREIN THEY AGREE. 

In calling your attention to some of the points, "wherein they 
agree," we begin with: 

i. A common na??ie — Lutheran. There is something in a name, 
little as we are disposed to make of it. A name is used to express 
some quality or property of an object. We recognize and distin- 
guish other Churches to some extent by their names. Presbyterian, 
Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist, express severally distinct denomina- 
tions, and types of our Protestant Christianity. The name Lutheran 
serves the same general purpose. At first, the name was not a mat- 
ter of preference or voluntary choice, but applied as a term of re~ 
proach; yet, like the name Christian, having been applied by ene- 
mies it was accepted, and no part of the Lutheran Church would now 
hastily abandon its use. We are not, as some imagine, followers of 
Martin Luther, but we are not unwilling to bear the name of that 
chosen instrument of God to restore to His Church doctrines which 
we hold dearer than all human names. We are Evangelical Luther- 
ans, because we accept the Gospel which Luther rescued from Rom- 
ish perversions and abuses. There have been and still are other 
discriminating and qualifying appellations along with Lutheran, some 
of them at times used to express invidious distinctions. Thus we 
have had German Lutheran, Swedish Lutheran, English Lutheran, 



DR. BROWN'S ESSAY. 83 

American Lutheran, Missouri Lutheran, and divers other kinds, but 
all bearing the generic name, Lutheran. 

As no one of these four bodies is inclined to abandon the name, 
so no one intends to allow any other a monopoly of its use or 
honors. Some, indeed, may regard themselves as more Lutheran 
than others, and better entitled to wear the ancestral name, but this 
is a matter open to discussion. Some may be less Lutheran than 
Luther was, and others may be more Lutheran than the reformer 
himself. The divergencies in this respect may indeed be con- 
siderable, and may vary with the same body at different times. 
There may be as much difference in the same body at different 
periods in its existence, as between two of these bodies at the same 
time, but still they do not surrender the title. In a family one 
son may be more like the father than another, but this does not 
deprive either of the right to wear the family name. And it not 
unfrequently happens that the likeness reappears most striking in 
a succeeding generation, where it had been least apparent in a 
former one. So it has happened again and again with Churches, 
which have still held on to the old family name. These bodies all 
mean to be known and recognized as Lutheran. 

The absurdity of any one of these bodies attempting to set up an 
exclusive right to the use of the name Lutheran is manifest from the 
fact, that no two of them would agree as to who should have the 
right to wear it. It must be admitted that if not Lutherans, then 
we are nothing at all : for none of us are Baptists, or Methodists, 
or Presbyterians, or Episcopalians, much less Romanists, or Ration- 
alists — and surely we are somebody. If not Lutherans, it is time 
we should know what we are, and that the world should know. 
We are called Lutherans. We are Lutherans — all Lutherans, bear- 
ing the name, and entitled to bear it. If any are disposed to dis- 
pute this point, or challenge the right of any one of these bodies to 
the Lutheran name, it may be added, that so far as the highest civil 
authorities can determine the point, they have decided that we shall 
be acknowledged and held in law as Lutherans, and entitled to the 
rights and privileges of Lutherans. 

2. A common origin or descent. There is something in blood as 
well as in a name. Religion and Churches have been largely af- 
fected in their character by nationality or race. It is true that God 
" made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face 



84 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

of the earth ; ' ' but it is also true that He has made use of them in 
different ways and for different purposes in accomplishing His own 
most holy will. This principle showed itself in the times of the 
Apostles, between the Jewish and Gentile portions of the Church ; 
and soon afterwards between the Eastern and Western Churches. 
Each had its special origin and mission. 

At the time of the Reformation some nationalities took more 
kindly to one form of Protestantism, and some to another. Luther 
himself was a German, not only by birth, but in soul and spirit, in 
heart and life, and his magnetic influence is felt among Germans 
and their descendants to the present day. And this extended itself 
to those peoples or nationalities most intimately connected by blood 
and language with the Germans. On the other hand, Scotland, 
Ireland, and England did not take so kindly to Lutheranism as did 
the Germans and some other nationalities. They accepted what is 
generally known as the Reformed faith, and they continue in that 
faith. These different phases of Protestantism have perpetuated 
themselves through these several nationalities from the Reformation 
to our own times. The prophet asks: " Hath a nation changed 
their gods?" It is no small or easy thing for a people to change 
its religion, even where the change is only from one type of Pro- 
testantism to another. History records but few examples of a 
people or nation changing one form or type of a religion for 
another, even when these were closely allied, unless under some 
powerful movement, or by special divine interposition. 

Some may indeed hold that Lutheranism is Christianity, pure and 
unmixed, that any departure from it is a departure from true relig- 
ion, and that it is adapted to all nations, ages and climes. They may 
hold that all other forms of Protestantism are less pure, and that we 
should refuse to recognize other denominations as entitled to a like 
claim with ourselves to be parts of the true Church of Jesus Christ. 
It may be argued that as genuine Christianity, Lutheranism is 
bound to triumph everywhere. But still the stubborn fact remains, 
that our progress has been chiefly among the descendants of those 
who originally accepted the Lutheran form of the Reformation, and 
that we are making slow progress among those who from the begin- 
ning have accepted and practiced a somewhat different form of 
Protestantism. If it indeed be true that Lutheranism is Christianity 
and Christianity Lutheranism, then there is a poor showing for 



DR. BROWN'S ESSAY. 85 

Christianity throughout a considerable part of the Protestant world, 
including the larger part of our own professed Christian population, 
with nearly all our large cities and centres of Christian activity. 
It must be confessed that our chief progress thus far has been among 
those who claim a Lutheran ancestry; and, whilst neither our labors 
nor our success should be limited to these, they have on us peculiar 
claims, and we have in them a fruitful field of labor. It might 
almost be said to require some mixture of German blood to make 
full-blooded Lutherans. 

These four bodies can claim a common origin or ancestry. Some 
of them may be a little further removed from their original tongue 
and characteristics than others, but all have something to say of the 
vaterland and the mutter ~spr ache. It is in the memory of those 
now living, when those portions of the Church at present most 
English in speech and customs, knew scarcely anything but Ger- 
man ; and in all of these bodies the great mass of the membership 
is either from the home of Lutheranism in the old world, or from 
their descendants in the new. In their veins there flows the same 
blood, and they have not only a common name, but are brethren 
according to the flesh. Alas, that difference of language or shades 
of belief, or diversities of any kind should have to any degree 
alienated those who are kindred of one family. 

3. The acceptance of the Augsburg Confession. This Confession 
is the oldest of modern Confessions. It is older than the decrees 
of the Council of Trent, or the Tridentine Catechism — the Confes- 
sion of the Catholic Church. It is older than the Orthodox Con- 
fession of the Greek Church. It justly claims a greater antiquity 
than any other Confession of any of the separate parts of Christen- 
dom. It moreover furnishes the basis of most of the other Confes- 
sions set forth by other Protestant denominations. It is indeed a 
grand old Confession, and any attempt to eulogize it would be as 
presumptuous as it would be unnecessary. 

The reception and profession of this Confession has for more 
than three hundred years been the acknowledged passport of gen- 
uine Lutheranism. Wherever the Lutheran Church has confessed 
her faith, in any quarter of the globe, she has done it by means of 
the Augsburg Confession. To this Confession, because of its evan- 
gelical character, no less than because of its historical renown, the 
Church clings as one of her chiefest glories. 



86 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

In its reception and profession all these bodies are agreed. There 
may be and there is some difference in the terms in which this Con- 
fession is subscribed. Different forms of subscription have existed 
from the very beginning of Lutheranism. They have been common 
in the old world as well as in the new. No particular form of, 
subscription has been established as essential to genuine Lutheran- 
ism. Whilst some have hesitated to adopt a form of subscription 
that binds to every jot and tittle of the Confession, others have not 
hesitated to go beyond the Confession, and bind to what is not re- 
quired by its letter or spirit. It is easy to make charges of un- 
Lutheran and hyper-Lutheran ways, but in such a controversy it is 
not so easy to convince each other of error. 

If the question were asked of any one of these bodies : What is 
your Confession of Faith ? the answer would be — the Augsburg 
Confession. If the additional question were asked — Nothing more, 
nothing less than this ? there would doubtless be explanations to 
be offered, and some differences of sentiment discovered, just as 
there would be in regard to the Apostles' Creed. But the fact still 
remains, that all agree in receiving and professing this venerable 
Confession. Moreover each body would doubtless be ready to de- 
fend its mode of receiving the Confession as the most consistent 
and most truly Lutheran. All that we deem important just now, 
and this we do deem important in this discussion is, that all agree 
in the one point of making the Augsburg Confession their Confes- 
sion of Faith. 

Time will not allow us to consider particular doctrines, but one 
or two have always been held by the Lutheran Church as so funda- 
mental to evangelical religion, and so broadly distinguishing the 
Lutheran from the Roman Catholic and from all Romanizing ten- 
dencies, that they may be briefly noticed. 

(i) The doctrine of Justification by Faith. It may be imagined 
that this doctrine is so common to all Protestant Churches, that it is 
folly to mention it as characterizing these bodies of Lutherans. 
But we claim that no other denomination has made it so prominent 
in its doctrinal system, and none have adhered to it with such un- 
compromising strictness. Other denominations have magnified 
some denominational peculiarity, so that they are chiefly known by 
such marks, but the Lutheran Church has kept central and most 
vital in her system this great doctrine of the Reformation. 



DR. BROWN'S ESSAY. Sj 

And this is true, we believe, to-day of all these bodies of Lutherans. 
It provokes a smile to hear the question from some other denomina- 
tions — as it has been heard — "Do these Lutherans really believe in 
the doctrine of justification by faith?" It might as well be asked, 
had Martin Luther really the courage to fight the pope and the 
devil ? Only ignorance could prompt either of these questions. 

Amid all the diversities in forms and ceremonies of Church polity 
and ecclesiastical regulations, there is agreement among us in hold- 
ing fast to the doctrine on which the Reformation hinged, the doc- 
trine transcending all others in importance to the salvation of souls 
and the purity of the Church — the doctrine for which the Reformers 
hazarded everything — salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone. 
It would betray an ignorance or prejudice provoking in others, but 
inexcusable in Lutherans, to question that any one of these bodies 
does maintain this common article of the Lutheran faith. 

(2) The priesthood of believers, and yet the divinely instituted 
office of the ministry. No righteousness before God but that of 
Christ, and no other priesthood than His, are twin doctrines. On 
the latter of these the Reformers insisted no less than on the former. 
The denial of these constituted the grand error of the papacy. So 
long as the doctrine of human merit and a human priesthood stands, 
there is a foundation for all the corruptions and abominations of the 
Romish Church. Remove these and the system must fall. 

But this leaves full room for the office of the Christian ministry — 
an office divinely instituted — to preach the Word and administer the 
Sacraments. This office is not the mere creature of the general body 
of believers, created or changed or abolished at its pleasure, but ex- 
ists by divine appointment, and is a necessary part of the divine 
economy for the establishment, perpetuity and extension of the 
Church of Christ on earth. 

In this general doctrine all Lutherans agree. There has been no 
little controversy in the Church on the subject of the ministry, and 
not a little diversity in practices that to the superficial observer 
might seem to indicate the widest difference of views. In some 
places and in some congregations there has been an amount of form 
and ceremony, a degree of ritualistic observances, that would satisfy 
the highest of high Churchmen, even of the Anglican or Romish 
order; whilst in others there has been a Puritanic plainness even to 
baldness, that might gratify the lovers of "meeting-houses." But 



88 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

amid this diversity of outward forms and ceremonies, from the lowest 
to the highest style of Church order, there has been a substantial agree- 
ment in rejecting every Romish idea of the ministry as a priesthood, 
and holding fast to the New Testament idea of the Christian ministry. 
No Church has been more free from Romanizing tendencies, or fur- 
nished fewer recruits to the Church of Rome than the Evangelical 
Lutheran Church. In this it may be safely said that all these bodies 
agree. They are all Lutheran, and they are all Evangelical Lutheran. 

4. The religious training of the young by means of catechetical in- 
struction, and the ratification of their covenant relotion with the 
Church by confirmation. Luther's Catechism and Luther's practice 
of catechetical instruction are still prominent features of Lutheran- 
ism. There have been times in the history of the Church, in the old 
world as well as in the new, when this system of religious training 
was well nigh abandoned. New methods have been tried, and not 
by one part of the Church alone. There have been times when the 
ancient practice of confirmation was a "new measure" in the 
Lutheran Church, and that in the early home of Lutheranism. 
Neither Rationalism nor Radicalism is answerable for all the strange 
fire that has been kindred on Lutheran altars. 

But there is a growing conviction in favor of the good old ways, 
not to the exclusion, however, of the wisdom to be gathered from 
observation and experience under the teaching of the divine 
Word and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The old is not to be 
cherished simply because it is old, nor the new to be rejected simply 
because it is new. 

In all of these bodies, so far as we know, there is agreement in 
the importance and value of catechetical instruction, and of a care- 
ful indoctrination of the young and the old in the great truths of 
our most holy faith. Some may be more zealous and faithful in this 
duty than others, but all agree in the general practice. 

On this part of our subject, we only add : 

5. The Lutheran love of liberty and agreement in diversity. If 
there were nothing else " wherein they agree," they surely agree in 
this— that the largest liberty is claimed and practiced, and that great 
diversity prevails among the Churches in all of these bodies. As a 
rule no two churches, even in the same place, have precisely the 
same service. They all have manuals of worship, and to a certain ex- 
tent the churches conform to the recommendations of their respect- 



DR. BROWN'S ESSAY. 89 

ive bodies ; but they also have an invincible love of liberty, so char- 
acteristic of Lutherans and Germans, and refuse to be fettered by 
ecclesiastical regulations. 

For this good Lutheran authority might be cited. At the very 
outset the Reformers declared that in order " to the true unity of the 
Church, it is not necessary that human traditions, rites or ceremonies 
instituted by men, should be everywhere alike," and even the Form 
of Concord, prepared in the interests of the strictest Lutheranism, 
teaches that "no Church should condemn another because one 
observes more or less than the other of those outward ceremonies 
which God has not commanded." 

If in anything Lutherans have always and everywhere manifested 
their adherence to the teaching of the Symbolical Books, it has been 
in this particular. On opposite sides of the same street, and in the 
same city or town, they are found using different forms of service, 
and worshiping in the beauty of almost infinite diversity. This is 
true, we are informed, in Europe, as we all know it to be in this 
country. It may be regarded as characteristic of Lutheranism. 

In this these four bodies agree. They differ among themselves 
as well as from each other, but they agree in this endless diversity. 
In the matter of wearing the gown, the use of a liturgy, the extent 
of liturgical services, the variations in the services on different oc- 
casions, the administration of ordinances — the use of the wafer or 
bread, etc., etc., almost every congregation is a law unto itself. 
And no one can well condemn another, seeing they all claim the 
same law of liberty. It may be well for us all to remember the 
words of the apostle: "Happy is he that condemneth not himself in 
that thing which he allow eth" 

We have now briefly noticed a few of the points wherein these 
four bodies agree. Others might be mentioned, and these dwelt 
upon at greater length, but a due regard to the time allowed and to 
the patience of our hearers, forbids a more extended discussion. 
Besides, it is quite sufficient to indicate, without enlargement, such 
points of agreement as may serve to furnish a comprehensive and 
intelligent judgment on the subject. 

If I have passed by the points of difference, or made no account 

of them, it will be understood that it is just because this is no part 

of the task assigned me, and I leave to others this duty. There 

may possibly be opportunities enough during the meetings of this 

7 



90 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Diet to show wherein we differ, and to make manifest some points of 
disagreement. It would be altogether gratuitous for me to antici- 
pate what others will have, if they choose, a better right to say and 
show. 

II. "WHEREIN THEY MIGHT HARMONIOUSLY CO-OPERATE." 

It is not likely that those who arranged the programme for this Diet, 
and in their selections assigned me this subject for discussion, had 
any special reference to our comfort, but it is a matter of some relief 
as well as satisfaction, that it has been put in the very form it is. 
Had the wording been, " Wherein can they harmoniously co-oper- 
ate," judging from past experience and present aspects, the answer 
would be, in nothing save possibly in holding such a free Diet, in 
which no one is responsible for anybody but himself, and that 
responsibility understood to be of a somewhat general character. 
Even the holding of a Diet has been ridiculed by some as visionary, 
and opposed by others as likely to result in all manner of evils to 
the Lutheran Church, and the serious detriment of those who par- 
ticipate in it. Perhaps few have been without grave suspicions as 
to the result. 

We must be frank enough to say that with these different organi 
zations existing as they are, with ail the machinery necessary to their 
separate and distinct work, we do not see how they can harmoniously 
co-operate, if this means uniting energies and efforts in joint labors. 
If it means, as we suppose it does, something more than amicable 
relations, and non-interference with each other's interests, then co- 
operation seems to us difficult if not impossible, without the sur- 
render of principles which some or all of these bodies profess to 
hold of vital importance, and to which in some degree they owe 
their separate existence. But we are not asked to consider "Wherein 
they can harmoniously co-operate," but '.'wherein they might." What 
we can do in certain circumstances, and what we might do with 
these circumstances largely at our control, are very different ques- 
tions. 

Nor are we required or expected to turn prophet, and forecast 
the future, telling how in the good time to come all divisions will 
be healed, all differences forgotten, and we present the picture of a 
perfectly united and harmonious Church. This may be left to those 
whose "bright visions" extend to the dim future, and who can see 



DR. BROWNS ESSAY. 9 1 

farther and clearer than common mortals. Such a time we may not 
only hope will come, but we might all fervently pray, Even so, let 
it come quickly. 

But we are now to consider "wherein these four bodies might 
harmoniously co-operate." This leads us to look at the reasonable 
probabilities of the case. Not what they can do, just now and as 
they are ; nor what they some day may or will do, but what they 
might do. This implies a change or modification of their policy 
and action in some respects, and implies that this is a thing of pos- 
sible accomplishment. It does not, however, imply the abandon- 
ment of these several distinct organizations. Indeed, the very con- 
trary is implied in the question, for it is how these bodies as separate 
bodies might thus co-operate. But it does imply the abandon- 
ment, to some extent at least, of separate and rival interests, and that 
these interests should be pursued in common and harmoniously by 
all these bodies. It does imply, we think, a mutual recognition of 
each other as Lutheran bodies, and a willingness to labor together 
in the service of a common Lord and Master. It would seem like 
sheer folly to talk of harmonious co-operation, and yet hesitate to 
recognize each other's character and labors as true and genuine 
Lutherans. 

And such a recognition might take place. The stern logic of 
events will probably sooner or later compel it. Churches as well as 
individuals are sometimes constrained to yield to enlightened public 
sentiment and the ongoings of Divine Providence. The deepest 
prejudices and the bitterest animosities have melted away under the 
softening influences of time, and the subduing power of the Spirit of 
God. Paul and Barnabas once separated, and after a " sharp con- 
tention," but we have good reason to believe that they became 
reconciled, and harmoniously co-operated in the cause of their 
Redeemer. Such things have often occurred in the history of the 
Church, and may occur again. What thus often occurs in the 
Church might take place even in the Lutheran Church, and among 
these four bodies. They might be led to see that it was their duty 
and interest to cease contending with one another, and in one spirit, 
with one mind, strive together for the faith of the Gospel ! 

Viewing this subject, then, in this light, as to what they might do in 
the direction indicated, instead of saying, "in nothing," we would 
rather incline to say they might co-operate in everything. We see 



92 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

nothing "wherein" they might not co-operate — nothing of a gen- 
eral character and pertaining to the general welfare of the Church. 
They might co-operate in the preaching of the Gospel, in the build- 
ing of churches and the support of the ministry, in the .work of 
Home and Foreign Missions, in Publication, in the establishment 
and support of Literary and Theological Institutions, in a word, in 
all the great work of the Church. 

Impracticable, utterly impracticable, perhaps it will be said, is 
such an idea. " Can two walk together except they be agreed?" 
Have we not heard this repeated a thousand times, and have we not 
found it to be true? Well, it may be impracticable. It may be 
that Lutherans are not yet cured of their folly, and cannot or will 
not co-operate. But remember, we are not considering what can be 
done with all our impracticabilities, but what might be done, if we 
were willing and disposed to do it. 

Perhaps it is expected that I should specify the particular depart- 
ments of labor, in which they might co operate — name the general 
interests, or mark out the common ground, where they might meet, 
forgetting differences, and unite in the common cause. It is no 
doubt imagined by some that it would be much easier to co-operate 
in some things than in others, and that a beginning thus made would 
gradually result in a more general co-operation. But I do not see 
where to draw this line. Some, perhaps many, would say, in the 
work of Foreign Missions at least. There, it may be said, if no- 
where else, we should forget our differences in laboring for the sal- 
vation of the heathen. This may be on the principle that the field 
of labor is so distant that the angle of vision cast by our differences 
vanishes before it reaches the place ; or possibly because our efforts 
in behalf of Foreign Missions have been so lamentably small, that 
it is not deemed worth while to contend with one another. But if 
we might co-operate in the work of Foreign Missions, why not in 
that of Home Missions, of Education, of Church Extension, and of 
all general Church work? Substantially the same difficulties meet us 
at every point, and what we might do in one we might about as well 
do in all. 

We do not mean, however, that there could not be a practical co- 
operation in some things without a co-operation in all. For instance, 
we might agree to co-operate in the work of Missions, without 
abandoning our separate educational or publication interests; or 



DR. BROWNS ESSAY. 93 

the very reverse, we might agree to co-operate in establishing a 
great Lutheran University, after the fashion of some in the old 
world, where different denominations even are represented, and yet 
maintain our separate interests in Missions and other objects. If we 
must co-operate only in part, and religiously cherish a horror of too 
much unionism even among Lutherans, then the particular part must 
be a matter of individual preference or voluntary choice. 

That such reasonable co-operation might take place, if the parties 
so desired, or that such a thing is not utterly impracticable, a few 
considerations will be offered to show. 

The differences existing between these four bodies are not really 
greater than those which have existed in other churches, or be- 
tween denominations, where such co-operation was practically main- 
tained. In the Episcopal Church there exists to-day as wide a diver- 
sity in faith and feeling as prevails among these four bodies of 
Lutherans, and yet there is co-operation, if not always so harmoni- 
ous, yet quite earnest and efficient. Except when they elect a 
bishop, or some other matter where party spirit displays itself, they 
merge their differences in the common cause. High and low Church- 
men, ritualists and anti-ritualists, all recognize each other as belong- 
ing to the same Church, and work together. Forty years ago the 
differences in doctrine and spirit and practice in the Presbyterian 
Church were deemed so material that a division took place, and two 
bodies were formed as distinct and antagonistic as any two of our 
Lutheran bodies. Accompanying this division were the severest 
criminations and recriminations, with litigations in court, and angry 
discussions in print. The cries of heresy were frequent and loud. 
Rival institutions of different characters were established by both 
parties, and for a period of thirty years a vigorous warfare carried 
on. Some nine or ten years ago a treaty of peace and concord was 
established, the two bodies became one again, and now there is not 
only co-operation, but organic union. And yet everybody knows 
that the same diversity of views and feelings prevails now as did 
during the thirty years of division and separation. 

These bodies have not deemed absolute agreement necessary to 
united and harmonious co-operation. Cases might be cited of de- 
nominations, bearing different names and with different confessions, 
co-operating in most important Church work, as that of education 
and missions. Lutherans themselves have united with other denom- 



94 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

inations in the erection of churches, support of schools, and various 
interests belonging to the Church. 

To this there will be raised the cry of unionistic Lutheranism. 
Be it so. It is not quite certain that a unionistic spirit is any worse 
than a separatistic one, or that needless divisions are any more 
pleasing to God or men than doubtful unions. The Lutheran 
Church may be in quite as much danger of sinning in the direction 
of exclusivism and separatism, as in the direction of too great a 
love for union. But we only cite the facts to show what has been 
done, and what might be done. 

It is repeated again and again by Protestants of almost every 
name, that the Roman Catholic Church is as much divided, or has 
existing within her as many divisions and as great diversities as are 
found in the Protestant Church. These diversities are on leading 
points of doctrine, and produce strong antagonisms, resulting some- 
times in violent controversies and bitter denunciations ; yet they 
co-operate earnestly, and, so far as their chief ends are concerned, 
harmoniously. In this respect, the wonderful organization and 
effective co-operation of that Church commands the admiration, 
and at times the serious apprehension, of states and empires, as well 
as that of the rest of the Christian world. . Their union and co- 
operation in spite of all diversities and differences, make that Church 
a mighty power in the world. Can Lutherans learn nothing from 
examples such as these, and without imitating the errors of Rome, 
might not we at least learn the value of united co-operation? 

It may perhaps be still more in point to observe that diversities 
similar to those now existing in and between these four bodies have 
existed in the Lutheran Church from the very beginning, and with- 
out destroying her unity or forbidding co-operation. This may 
possibly be called in question, but our appeal is to the testimony of 
history. The two leading tendencies were exhibited in Luther and 
Melanchthon ; and have continued to show themselves in every suc- 
cessive period from that day until the present. Not now to speak of 
other and even wider diversities which have prevailed within the old 
historic Lutheran Church, these two diversities have always existed, 
and have not always compelled division or rendered co-operation 
impracticable. There have always been unyielding, uncompromis- 
ing spirits, who have sought to make such diversities a ground of 
controversy and separation, as they did between Luther and Me- 



DR. BROWN S ESSAY. 95 

lanchthon, but not always with success. Luther clung to Melanch- 
thon and Melanchthon to Luther, in spite of their diversities, and in 
spite of the efforts of those who sought to sow the seeds of discord 
and division. 

It has indeed been the boast of Lutherans that there are no 
Lutheran sects, that her system of doctrine and forms of worship are 
so catholic and liberal, that all truly Evangelical Christians may 
find a home in her inclosure ; and that a wide diversity of views 
and tastes may not only be tolerated, but exist of right, according 
to her free and liberal spirit. If this boast has any true foundation, 
then it is utterly inconsistent with the spirit of Lutheranism to be 
exclusive or intolerant, or to refuse co-operation where it is practi" 
cable. 

Let it not be forgotten that the Lutheran Church has nourished 
a Melanchthon as well as a Luther, an Arndt, a Calixtus, a Spener, 
a Francke, and a Muhlenberg, as well as a Flacius, a Calovius, and 
others of that school. It is doubtful if any one of these divisions 
would care to disown men of whom the whole Christian world may 
be justly proud. But if there is room in this grand old Church for 
a Luther and a Melanchthon, a Calovius and a Calixtus, what 
hinders the co-operation of these four bodies of Lutherans ? Are 
there any greater diversities among them than have existed in the 
past, when there was co-operation? Spener was charged with hold- 
ing and teaching more deadly errors than are charged against all 
these bodies combined, and yet all now claim him. History records 
strange reversals of ecclesiastical judgments. Let us beware lest our 
judgments should be reversed in the years to come, if we decide 
against co-operation and in favor of continued opposition. 

I will not anticipate objections. If any are ambitious to see the 
divisions in the Lutheran Church perpetuated, to see her strength 
frittered away in feeble and unpromising efforts, to see one part of 
the Church arrayed against another, whilst the hosts of darkness 
present a united front against our advance ; if they are satisfied to 
live and die, having achieved the glory of keeping alive controver- 
sies which centuries of debate and strife have done little or nothing 
to settle, let them make their own choice. I envy them not their 
following nor their glory. I shall be glad, if in this Diet I have said 
one word that may have any, the very least, weight on the side of 
union and co-operation among all Lutherans here and elsewhere 



g6 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

throughout the world — a union that would be orthodox enough and 
catholic enough, Lutheran enough and liberal enough, to embrace 
not only a Luther and a Melanchthon, but all those who have the 
same spirit with those illustrious reformers, and who are willing " to 
the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace." 



REMARKS OF REV. D. P. ROSENMILLER. {General Synod.) 

The four ecclesiastical bodies of our Church agree in adopting 
the Bible as a supreme authority in Christian doctrine, and also in 
the acceptance of the Augsburg Confession as a declaration of the 
fundamental truths of the Bible. But there are some who go be- 
yond this, and enter upon ground not laid down in the Augsburg 
Confession. By laying aside all confessional writings except the 
Augsburg Confession, they could become a unit in faith, at the same 
time according to others the liberty which they claim for them- 
selves. They could then co-operate in the education of ministers, 
with feelings of kindness toward each other, and renewed interest 
in Home and Foreign Missions would exemplify the unity of the 
Church. 

REMARKS OF REV. W. J. MANN, D. D. {General Cotmcil.) 

It is understood that silence here must not be misunderstood, 
otherwise I would feel completely vanquished. It is certain that the 
Augsburg Confession alone would not have made the Lutheran 
Church. Luther's Small Catechism has done much more for her 
practical life. Bro. Rosenmiller uses the Augsburg Confession as a 
cloak for unionistic indifferentism. The language of the Augsburg 
Confession is so short and concise, that it is often unfairly used for 
whatever perversions may be desired. It must, of course, be inter- 
preted in the sense in which the authors of the Confession themselves 
understood it. Anything else is a falsification. What the precise 
understanding of the Augsburg Confession is, is a point concerning 
which there can be no doubt. Luther's Catechism preceded the 
Augsburg Confession. In the sense of the Catechism the Confession 



discussion. 97 

is to be understood ; otherwise Luther would contradict himself even 
in public documents. It is doing a great wrong toward him and 
the Lutheran reformers to place such a sense upon their words, as 
for instance in the doctrine of the Holy Supper, as they on every 
given occasion most strenuously rejected, and regarded as heretical. 
To use the Augsburg Confession as a bond of union for those who 
seriously differ in their interpretation of it, is consequently totally 
out of place. 

REMARKS BY PROF. V. L. CONRAD. {General Synod.) 

I do not wish to occupy the time of the Diet, but as others appear 
to hesitate, I have a word to say in reply to the remarks of Dr. 
Mann. He remarked that the doctrine of the Lord's Supper is 
one of the great distinctive and fundamental doctrines of the Lu- 
theran Church, and after explaining its relations, closed by ask- 
ing, " How can there be co-operation without agreement on this 
important and fundamental doctrine ?" 

To this I reply : If the manner of our Saviour's presence 
in the Eucharist be made the great central, distinctive and 
fundamental doctrine of the Lutheran Church, instead of justifica- 
tion by faith, the supreme authority of the Word of God, the uni- 
versal priesthood of believers, and other doctrines presented by Dr. 
Brown in his essay just read; and if precise uniformity of view 
respecting the manner of that presence be made a necessary condi- 
tion of co-operation among Lutherans and Christians, then, of 
course, no such co-operation is practicable or possible, because 
diversities of view on that aspect of doctrine, and on others of equal 
importance, exist in the Lutheran Church, and have existed from 
the beginning. 

The doctrine of our Lord's presence in the Holy Supper is de- 
clared in the Augsburg Confession, and is accepted. But the man- 
ner of His presence, as set forth in the Form of Concord, is not 
declared in the Confession, it is not in Christ's words of the institu- 



98 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

tion, and should not, therefore, be made confessional. If the ex- 
planation in the Form of Concord be made a test to determine who 
are Christians and Lutherans, then Christ himself was not n Chris- 
tian, and Melanchthon, who wrote the Augsburg Confession, was 
not a Lutheran. 

REMARKS OF REV. W. J. MANN, D. D. {General Council.) 

No Lutheran has ever denied the salvation of any one who be- 
lieved penitently that Christ had died for His sins, and that His 
blood is the atoning sacrifice for us. But this is not the question 
before the Church in her opposition to others. The most import- 
ant question to her is : What is the truth ? She is set to teach the 
truth, the whole truth, and therefore to watch over it. She has no 
right to say that this or that truth is of no account. The time may 
come when even those apparently far-off points may be of the high- 
est practical value. The attack against any part of the fortification 
is an attack against the whole fortress. We have to guard them all, 
and to answer for them all. The responsibility of the Church is 
not identical with the possibility of the appropriation of salvation 
by the individual soul. It is, however, a great mistake to suppose 
that any point of doctrine has no fundamental bearing. As to 
the Lord's Supper, it is as clear as daylight that the teachings of 
the Roman Church have a decidedly Manichean and Docetic tinge, 
while the Reformed view is undeniably materialistic, rationalistic 
and Ebionistic, and that such views, if applied to the person of the 
God-man himself, will most certainly, when consistently carried out, 
destroy the idea of incarnation. Luther knew why he laid all the 
stress upon the " very God" and the "very man" in the person of 
Christ. If the finite and the infinite, man and God, cannot truly 
be united, then the person Jesus Christ was not the God-man. But 
if they were united by that personal union, called incarnation, then 
they can never be severed, as we would then have to fall back upon 
a theophany, or even the personation of a stage-actor. But since 



discussion. 99 

they cannot be severed, as Christ gives to us Himself, the Lord's 
Supper can give us no less than divinity and humanity, conse- 
quently also His flesh and blood. He gives to the Church, what He 
gave for the Church. Considering the subject under these aspects, 
we are very far from thinking that the question about the Lord's 
Supper is a mere theological or scholastic squabble. There is 
much more behind it than most people suppose. 

REMARKS OF PROF. V. L. CONRAD. {General Synod.) 

I accept the man Christ Jesus as Jehovah God, because that is 
clearly revealed in the Scriptures, and is also in the Augsburg Con- 
fession. But the manner in which he is present in the elements of 
the Holy Supper, is not clearly revealed in the Scriptures, and is 
not in the Confession. It is a matter of inference or deduction. It 
is supernatural, mystical, mysterious — difficult to define, explain or 
understand. Indeed, it is acknowledged to be inexplicable, and 
should not therefore be held as properly confessional, but free. 
Nor should it be magnified beyond measure into a fundamental doc- 
trine upon which to dogmatize and separate Lutheran Christians, 
and prevent them from co-operating in the work which Christ has 
given them to do. 

REMARKS OF REV. F. W. CONRAD, D. D. {General Synod.) 

The able papes before us discusses a subject of great practical in- 
terest. It presents the points on which the four general Lutheran 
bodies in this country agree and might co-operate. The fact of 
their separate existence recalls the times and the circumstances under 
which they became separated. The General Synod South was or- 
ganized in consequence of, and during the continuance of the late 
civil war. The admission of the Franckean Synod at York, and the 
decision of Dr. Sprecher at Fort Wayne, became the occasion of 
the organization of the General Council. Prior to i860, the Gen- 
eral Synod South, and prior to 1864, the General Council, not 



100 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

only co-operated, but were organically united with the General 
Synod North. 

The General Synod South is the foster-child of the General Synod 
North, and in their confessional standpoints and ecclesiastical prin- 
ciples and practices these two bodies are still identical. We can, 
therefore, discover no valid reason why they should not be able to 
co-operate. If the division between the General Synod North and 
the General Council had occurred ten years earlier, it might have 
been regarded as a product of the ecclesiastical tendencies of the 
age; but taking into consideration the time and circumstances under 
which it occurred, it seems to us, when contemplated from our 
standpoint, to have been unnecessary, and should have been avoided. 
While, under the overrulings of Providence, incidental benefits may 
have resulted from their organization and efforts as separate bodies, 
the direct and inevitable evils resulting therefrom, in our judgment, 
overbalance them. 

The question introduced by the topic of the paper, is not whether 
these bodies could at this time unite, but whether they might not 
co-operate with each other in the prosecution of the work of evan- 
gelization at home and of missions abroad ? While their differences 
still prevent union, should not their agreements, which are more 
numerous and far more important, secure their co-operation ? Born 
of Lutheran parentage and tracing my ecclesiastical lineage to the 
Old Trappe Church, ministered to by Muhlenberg, I have conse- 
crated myself to the service of the Lutheran Church. To see her 
divisions healed, her scattered forces united, and her mighty ener- 
gies concentrated in the prosecution of her great mission in this 
western world — this has been the ecclesiastical idol of my life. In- 
terpreted by the sacerdotal prayer of Christ, that all His followers 
maybe one, this must be " a consummation devoutly to be wished ;" 
and stimulated by the hope of its realization, let us all continue to 
labor and pray. 



DISCUSSION. IOI 

REMARKS OF REV. A. C. WEDEKIND, D. D. {General Synod) 

I see no particular difficulty in the way, why these general bodies 
might not co-operate in the various enterprises of the Church. It 
surely cannot be supposed that absolute oneness is required, on all 
the details of a theological system, for such co-operation. If that 
be the law, then there is scarcely a family in Christendom, where 
co-operation in its own affairs can be secured. I venture to say, 
sir, that there is as much general doctrinal and cultus assimilation, 
between three of these four general bodies, at least, as there is be- 
tween the various parts of each. I have just attended a special 
meeting of a very large and influential Synod, not in connection 
with the General Synod, which was to settle some difficulties ; and 
the diversities of views which obtain among these brethren, are 
certainly not less by any means than those which are supposed to 
exist among these general bodies. The discussions, adjourned from 
their rival papers to this extra session of Synod, for two long days, 
elicited a diversity of sentiment declared on all hands to be most 
vital, that was to me astonishing. If it was not exactly like 
Ephraim envying Judah, and Judah vexing Ephraim, it came very 
near to it. Yet with all these vital differences, these brethren have 
hitherto co-operated and are still co-operating. 

Nor is the case very much different in the good old Synod which 
is the mother of us all. It needs only a glance at their periodicals 
and their official transactions to see the differences that prevail 
there. As far as we are now informed, these differences are irrecon- 
cilable. And it would certainly take a bold prophet to predict that 
these diversities would come to a speedy and harmonious oneness. 
If an armistice has been concluded, it is doubtless on the general 
principle of agreeing to disagree. And yet all these brethren co- 
operate in the great enterprises before them. These diversities do 
not interfere with their Christian activities. Their educational and 
mission operations, and their institutions of learning and piety, are 



102 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

alike dear to them all, receiving their hearty and united sympathies 
and aid. And yet I hesitate not in saying, and take all the respon- 
sibility of the statement, that the differences of most of these 
general bodies are not a whit greater than these smaller family dif- 
ferences. 

Why then should it seem an unreasonable 'thing to suppose that 
such co-operation could be had among them ? It surely does not 
demand, as already stated, a oneness of sentiment in all the minu- 
tice of religious views. No sane man will demand that. Well, 
then, sir, it is absolutely certain, that these general bodies will never 
be of one mind on every little detail, any more than these sub- 
bodies. What then? Let them remain in eternal antagonism? 
No, sir ! If they cannot be of one mind, let them be, like the first 
Christians, of one heart and one soul ! Let charity ascend the 
throne, and trample prejudice — that devil's wasp — into the mire. 
Let but simple honesty be done to all, and Luther's explanation of 
the eighth commandment be carried out, and I have no fears of the 
consequences. That matchless allegorist, John Bunyan, says in his 
Holy War, that Mr. Prejudice fell and broke his leg ; and then 
adds: "I wish he had broken his neck." From my innermost 
soul I say, Amen, to that devout wish ! 

REMARKS OF REV. R. A. FINK, D. D. {General Synod.) 
I have listened to the discussions in this Diet with deep interest from 
the beginning, and it seems to me that the chief cause of division 
in the Church, and difficulty in the way of general co-operation in 
matters of general interest, grow out of one thing ; that is, the 
manner of explaining or attempting to explain the mode or manner 
of Christ's presence in the Lord's Supper. That He is present we 
all agree ; but as to the how, we differ. I think the surest way to 
bring about union and general co-operation in the Church would be 
to cease requiring a uniform explanation of the manner of the 
Lord's presence. In my acquaintance with Lutherans and Lutheran 
ministers, I know of very few, if any, who if asked, " Do you be- 



DISCUSSION. 103 

lieve that the Lord is really present in the Holy Supper ?" would 
not unhesitatingly say, "Yes, I believe." "I believe Christ meant 
what He said when He declared, ' This is my body,' etc. — it's a mys- 
tery — I can't explain it." For myself, I adopt unhesitatingly the 
very words of the Augsburg Confession, as I do the words of the in- 
stitution itself. I call it a sacramental presence. 

Several voices : In the bread ? 

Dr. Fink : Yes, in the bread. 

The difficulty, I repeat, arises from an attempt to explain the man- 
ner, and the modus operandi of imparting the promised blessing. 
This is the fruitful source of difference amongst us. Let us, then, 
not require any manner of explanation of the mystery of the Lord's 
presence in the Eucharist, as we require none of the mystery of the 
Trinity in the formula of Holy Baptism. This difficulty out of the 
way, and the whole Church, it seems to me, could easily be brought 
together, and could most harmoniously co-operate in the great 
work of the spread of the gospel; other differences would soon 
vanish. 

REMARKS OF REV. W. S. EMERY {General Council.) 

I can well see why Dr. Brown refused to be stopped at the rap 
of your gavel when his time had expired. The closing sentences of 
his paper were the finest, the most beautiful and touching, in his 
entire essay. 

The paper was prepared with considerable care and research ; but 
unfortunately, it repeatedly used the phrase, ' ' the four general 
bodies in our Church all agree substantially." This term " substan- 
tially" was used throughout the entire essay, without one word of 
definition. The undefined use of this prominent and equivocal 
word constitutes the great weakness of the essay. 

This is especially noticeable, as it comes historically on the heels 
of the formulary so much used for thirty years in the reception of 
the Augsburg Confession. I refer to that formulary which reads : 



104 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

"We believe that the fundamental doctrines of God's Word are 
taught in a manner substantially correct in the Augsburg Confes- 
sion," which was formerly used as a means of evading the force of 
any article in the noble Confession, that any one chose to reject. 

If Dr. Brown, however, mean literally what he says, with an unex- 
ceptionable definition in its historical connection, then this historical 
substantial agreement must be received in the spirit, the life, the 
theology, the entire doctrinal agreement, in the very words of our 
noble Confession. The candid and clear belief of our great Con- 
fession, and an upright confession of its doctrines everywhere, 
would form a glorious bond of all Lutherans, in all languages and 
all lands. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. A. BROWN, D. D. {General Synod.) 

I am not at all ambitious to occupy the time which belongs to 
me in closing this discussion. There is little that I desire to add. 
If I have failed to make myself understood in the forty-five minutes 
allowed me to read, it is not likely that I will improve the matter 
by ten minutes' extemporaneous speaking. 

So little exception has been taken to the essay that it might be 
inferred that we are all in favor of " harmoniously co operating." 
If this be so, it should be the cause of devout gratitude. About the 
only exception formally taken, has been to the use of the word 
"substantially," or that these bodies "agree substantially," without 
defining the term. As the word itself is a defining term, it seems 
ridiculous to ask that it again be defined, for this would be to start 
on a process that has no end. We think most persons understand 
the meaning of the word substantially ; and the fling at one of 
these four bodies in which the term is said to have been covertly 
used, is neither timely nor wise. That body is not here on trial, 
and if it were, it would not be wanting for cheerful and willing de- 
fenders. It would perhaps be wiser and better for any who are 
anxious for work of this kind to look well to their own defences. 



DISCUSSION. 105 

Should any, as a matter of taste, prefer any other term to express 
the same general idea, I certainly have no objections. 

For myself, I have no such difficulties as some are exercised with, 
about either substantial agreement, or harmonious co-operation. 
The platform on which I stand is broad enough, and I will venture 
to add firm enough, to receive all genuine Lutherans. I stand 
where I have stood for nearly a third of a century, and where I 
hope to continue standing as long as I am permitted to remain in 
the Church on earth. In this position I find no difficulty, on my 
part, in co-operating with Lutherans of different tendencies, pro- 
viding only that they recognize me as I recognize them. On this 
broad catholic Lutheran basis I could fellowship and co-operate 
with those who believe a great deal more than I do. I should not 
quarrel with any for receiving all the Symbolical Books, and believ- 
ing every word contained in them. But I ask the liberty of not 
making their capacity to receive and believe the rule for me, if 
I am not able to believe quite so much. I will respect their faith if 
they respect mine, and I will respect their Lutheranism if they re- 
spect mine. With this mutual respect for each other, we can agree 
to co-operate, and co-operate as Lutherans. But just here is the 
difficulty. Some are not willing to grant any such liberty, or to 
recognize any such differences in the Lutheran Church. Whilst I 
would be willing to acknowledge their Lutheranism, though prefer- 
ring my own, they are not willing to acknowledge mine. And if 
any think that this is a concession of their superior claims, I have 
only to say, so much the worse for them that they are thus unwill- 
ing. We are as well satisfied with our Lutheranism as they can 
be with theirs. Co-operation on our part is invited on terms alike 
scriptural and honorable to all, and if any will not, they are left to 
God and their own consciences. 

I can but reiterate the points " wherein we agree," and express 
the conviction that they are quite sufficient for harmonious co- 
operation. Other denominations around us have differences greater 

than ours, and yet co-operate. Similar differences exist in each 
8 



106 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

one of these four bodies ; and yet they severally co-operate. I can 
see no good reason why Lutherans might not do the same. We are 
now a spectacle and a wonder to many round about us, who do not 
understand our differences, and the time may come when we will 
be a greater wonder to ourselves than we now are to others. But 
I have said all that I care at present to say, and will close with the 
expression of my most ardent wishes for unity of spirit, harmony 
and co-operation throughout the whole Lutheran Church. 
Adjourned. 



THIRD SESSION. 



December 27th, 7:30 p. m. 
After prayer by Rev. J. F. Reinmund, D. D., of Lebanon, Pa., 
the fourth paper was read. 

THE HISTORY AND PROGRESS OF THE LUTHERAN 
CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES. 

BY REV. H. E. JACOBS, D. D. 
Franklin Professor in Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, Pa. 

ALTHOUGH the foundations of the Lutheran Church in Amer- 
ica are only now beginning to be really laid, yet the efforts 
of the present cannot be fully understood without a consideration 
of the lessons that our past history, as a Church on this continent, 
has taught us. 

It is a fortunate circumstance, that we possess such full contem- 
porary records of many of the earliest struggles of Lutheranism 
in America ; l and that in later years, a number of our brethren 
have been so diligent in presenting to our English speaking people 
the story of the labors of their fathers, and in accumulating mater- 
ial for the future historian of our Church.' 2 It is our purpose to 

1 (a) History of New Sweden, by Israel Acrelius, formerly Provost of the 
Swedish churches on the Delaware, Stockholm, 1759. Translated by W. 
M. Reynolds, D. D., Philadelphia, 1874. 

(3) Nachrichten von den vereinigten Deutschen Ev. Luth. Gemein. in Amer- 
ica, absonderlich in Pennsylvanien. Halle, 1758-87. 

[c) The Urlspergcr Reports from the Lutheran Salzburger pastors in Georgia. 

2 History of the American Lutheran Church, by E. L. Hazelius, D. D., 
Zanesville, 0., 1846. The American Lutheran Church, by S. S. Schmucker, 
D. D., Philadelphia, 1852. The Salzburgers and their Descendants, by 
Rev. P. A. Strobel, Baltimore, 1855. Early History of the Lutheran Church 
in America, by C. W. Schaeffer, D. D., Philadelphia, 1857. Memoir of the 
Life and Times of Henry Melchior Muhlenberg, by M. L. Stoever, LL.D., 
Philadelphia, 1856. History of the German Settlements and of the Lutheran 
Church in North and South Carolina, by G. D. Bernheim, D. D. To these 
we may add the Reminiscences of Lutheran Ministers, by Dr. Stoever, in the 

(107) 



108 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

condense into the limits allowed us, the leading facts scattered 
through these various sources. 

The Lutheran Church in America is probably over two hundred 
and fifty years old. The precise year of earliest origin, is involved 
somewhat in doubt ; yet we may consider it at least probable, that 
fifteen years before the Baptists, sixty-five before the Presbyterians, 
and one hundred and forty before the Methodists had made a be- 
ginning, and only a year or two after the landing of the Puritans 
on Plymouth Rock, there were faithful confessors of the Lutheran 
Church already on these shores; and that the land which, in 1523, 
gave our faith its first martyrs, gave it almost a century later its first 
witnesses in this western world, in fulfillment of Luther's pre- 
diction that the voices of those two youths who were burned in the 
Netherlands, would yet be heard proclaiming the testimony of 
Jesus to many nations. 3 Worthy successors of their martyred coun- 
trymen, were the Dutch Lutherans of New Amsterdam. Few in 
number, among their countrymen of the Reformed faith, no per- 
suasion could induce them to enter into the communion of the 
Churches that subscribed to the decrees of the Synod of Dort, and 
persecution proved as unavailing as persuasion. 4 They were forced 
to meet in private houses; they were fined; ^100 was the penalty 

Evangelical Review, and his contributions to Sprague's Annals of the Amer- 
ican Lutheran Pulpit, and McClintock and Strong's Cyclopaedia, and several 
articles by Dr. W. M. Reynolds, in the Evangelical Review (Swedish Churches 
on the Delaware, I: 161 ; Lutheran Church in Netherlands and New York, 
6: 303; German Emigration to North America, 13: 1; Scandinavians in the 
N. W., 3: 399, etc.). The Evangelisches Magazin of Dr. Helmuth, the 
Lutheran Intelligencer of Dr. D. F. Schaeffer, and the Ltitheran Magazine of 
Dr. G. A. Lintner, contain considerable historical material. We have been 
greatly aided in the preparation of this paper by the use of the Library of the 
Historical Society of the Lutheran Church, in the Theological Seminary at 
Gettysburg, which contains an almost complete set of the Minutes of Lutheran 
Synods in America, and much other rare and valuable material. 

3 We find Lutherans mentioned in the earliest classification of the inhabi- 
tants of the New Netherlands, according to their faith. See report of the 
Jesuit Father Jogue (1643), Documentary History of New York, IV. p. 19. 
Hence the inference that there were Lutherans in the colony from the begin- 
ning in 1622. 

The same paper notices the presence in New Amsterdam also of Roman 
Catholics, English Puritans and Anabaptists, called Mnists. 

4 For details, see Brodhead's History of New York, I. 582, 617, 634, 642. 



DR. JACOBS ESSAY. IO9 

for preaching the Gospel ; ^25 for attending a Lutheran service; 
they were imprisoned; their " conventicles" were broken up. 
Even the year after the West India Company had rebuked this in- 
tolerance of Gov. Peter Stuyvesant, Rev. John E. Goetwater, sent 
as a Lutheran pastor by the consistory of Amsterdam, was saved 
from immediate banishment upon reaching New Amsterdam, only by 
his ill health, which procured a stay of procedure for four months. 
In the published archives of the State of New York, 5 there is an in- 
teresting letter from Megapolensis and Drisius, Reformed pastors, 
dated August 5th, 1657, recounting " the injuries that threaten this 
community by the encroachments of the heretical spirits," in which 
the following occurs : "It came to pass that a Lutheran preacher, 
named Joannes Ernestus Goetwater, arrived in the ship, the Mill, 
to the great joy of the Lutherans, and especial discontent and dis- 
appointment of the congregation of this place; yea, of the whole 
land, even of the English. * * We already have the snake in 
our bosom." * * In conclusion, these earnest champions of the 
Reformed faith, beg that "a stop be put to the work, which they 
seem to intend to push forward with a hard Lutheran pate, in de- 
spite and opposition of the regents." Our Dutch brethren do not 
seem to have been unwilling to attend the Reformed service, and to 
show proper respect to the religious convictions of their country- 
men ; but the controversy centered especially upon the administra- 
tion of Baptism, in which the effort was made to extort from them 
the promise to train up their children in the doctrines of the Synod 
of Dort. The conquest of the colony by the English, in 1664. 
gave the Lutherans religious liberty ; but nine years before this de- 
liverance, the same power that oppressed the Dutch Lutherans, 
when it prevailed in New Sweden, had banished two of the three 
Swedish Lutheran pastors. The third was allowed to remain, be- 
cause other troubles diverted the attention of the government, and 
"we had no Reformed preacher to establish there, or who under- 
stood their language." 6 A recent writer has brought to light the 
history of a colony of Dutch Lutherans on James' Island, S, C., as 

5 Documentary History of New York, 3 : 103. 

*Ev. Review^ I: 176, from O'Callaghan's History of the New Netherlands 
2 : 289, 290, translation of letter of Dominie Megapolensis, by Rev. Dr. De 
Witt. 



HO FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

early as 1674, and the proscription which they suffered from the 
Church of England. 7 

Meanwhile, the Lutheran Church had gained another foothold in 
this country. Almost on the very territory on which this diet is 
to-day assembled, the colony of New Sweden was planted, two hun- 
dred and forty years ago. The first Lutheran Church edifice on 
this continent was erected within the walls of Fort Christina, now 
Wilmington, Del , probably in 1638 ; and the first Lutheran minis- 
ter was the Rev. Reorus Torkillus, who after eight years' service 
here, died in 1643. 8 Campanius, the second pastor, was the first 
Protestant missionary to the North American Indians, being several 
years earlier in this work than the distinguished John Eliot. He 
translated Luther's catechism into the Delaware language, and to 
his influence and that of his successors, belongs much of the credit 
for the success of the Indian policy of William Penn ; 9 as the In- 
dians with whom Penn had to do were those among whom these 
Swedish pastors had lived and labored. The first Lutheran Church 
in Pennsylvania was built in Delaware county, in 1646. 10 Not long 
after, the present limits of this city were entered. An old block- 
house at Wicacoa served for awhile as a house of worship, and on 
its site, in 1700, Gloria Dei Church was dedicated. 11 Altogether, 
there were at least six of these churches, ministered to for over a 
century and three-quarters, by a succession of thirty-five pastors, 
most of them men of strong faith and eminent devotion, the last of 
whom died in 1831. 12 They were presided over by Provosts, of 
whom the most prominent were the historian Acrelius and Von 
Wrangel. Some of their ministers preached in English, German 
and Dutch, besides Swedish. Thus we find Rudman serving the 
Dutch Lutheran Church at Albany 13 in the beginning of the eigh- 
teenth century, Dylander organizing into congregations the Ger- 
mans of Lancaster and Germantown, and Von Wrangel preaching 
for the churches at Lancaster and York. 14 Three of their pastors 
in 1703, administered, in Gloria Dei Church, the first rite of Lu- 

7 Bernheim's History, 56. 8 Acrelius, 85. 

9 Acrelius, 85, 366. Schaeffer's Early History, 21. Dr. Reynolds in Ev 
Review, 1 : 173. A copy of this catechism is in the library of the Lutheran His- 
torical Society at Gettysburg. 

10 Acrelius, 43. n Acrelius, 203. 12 Acrelius, 313, 344, 349. 

13 Acrelius, 213. i*£v. Review, 1 : 142. 



DR. JACOBS ESSAY. Ill 

theran ordination in America, the clergyman ordained being the 
Rev. Justus Falkner, 15 serving congregations in Montgomery- 
county, and afterward pastor of the Dutch Lutheran Church in New- 
York. In 1743, the year after the arrival of the patriarch Muhlen- 
berg, a union between the Germans and Swedes was proposed ; but 
was frustrated chiefly by the efforts of Nyberg, whose affiliations with 
the Moravians rendered him especially hostile to Muhlenberg, as 
the latter had just rescued the German Church in Philadelphia from 
Zinzendorf, 16 and whose erratic career subsequently occasioned the 
church at Lancaster so much trouble, 17 and resulted in his deposi- 
tion by the Swedish Archbishop. 18 At the organization of the Min- 
isterium of Pennsylvania in this city, in 1748, two of their pastors 
were present and took a prominent part in all the proceedings, 19 and 
at succeeding meetings of the Ministerium, recorded in the Halle 
Reports, the Swedish pastors were always represented, Provost Von 
Wrangel in his day being no less active on the floor of Synod than 
Dr. Muhlenberg himself. But unfortunately as the churches be- 
came anglicized, 20 neither the Swedish nor German ministers could 
supply them with sufficient English preaching, and English Lutheran 
ministers were not to be found. The Protestant Episcopal Church, 
in its weakness, had been nursed by the Swedish Lutheran pastors. 
When unable to worship in a house of their own, the Lutherans had 
permitted the Episcopalians to hold service regularly in their church ; 
and Lutheran ministers who had command of the English language, 
had repeatedly served them for considerable periods, both in the 
pulpit, and in pastoral ministration. 21 Occasionally an Episcopal 
minister would also fill a Swedish Lutheran pulpit, and they would 
even assist in the consecration of the churches of each other. 22 The 
result, therefore, was almost inevitable, that, in their perplexity, 



15 Acrelius, 214. 16 Acrelius, 245, 

I" Hall. Nach., 67, 69, 230, 232, 673, 1354. 18 Acrelius, 336. 

19 Especially in the ordination of Rev. William Kurtz, Hall. Nach., 284. 

20 Divine service in English became necessary in the Swedish Churches as 
early as 1750. See Acrelius, 305, 342. The manner in which it was intro- 
duced, more fully given, p. 360. 

21 Acrelius, 219, 220, 361. This service not only was rendered without com- 
pensation, but often, as Acrelius states, without any return to the Lutheran 
pastors of expenses incurred in this extra service. 

22 Acrelius, 361, 220. 



112 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

they would turn to the Episcopal Church for help, and that they 
would be sure to find it. Episcopal ministers first became the as- 
sistants of the Lutheran pastors. The charters were first altered, so 
as to allow the services of either Lutheran or Episcopal pastors; 23 
and the Lutheran name at length disappeared altogether. 21 

The German emigration to American began about 1680, 25 although 
we find no record of a German Lutheran Church or pastor until the 
next century. 1 703 is the date of Falkner's ordination, and his 
early labors in Montgomery county. 26 1708 notes the emigration 
of the Palatinate pastor Kocherthal, 27 and his little colony, to the 
west bank of the Hudson, where on the present site of Newburgh, 
fifty acres were given each colonist, and a glebe of five hundred 
acres donated " for the maintenance of a Lutheran minister and his 
successors forever," but which unfortunately at last fell into the 
hands of the Episcopalians. In 1710, other Lutheran Palatinates 
settled in the neighborhood of Newbern, North Carolina. 28 About 
the same time, another band, after a voyage of almost incredible 
hardship, reached New York, and with many sufferings, making 
their way through the wilderness, purchased land from the Indians, 
and formed the settlements at Schoharie. 29 Others found a home on 
both sides of the Hudson, a hundred miles north of New York, 30 and 
together with the Dutch Lutheran element previously settled, formed 
the basis for the twenty-two congregations, now in Columbia, 
Dutchess and Ulster counties. 31 Others remained in New York, and 
added to the strength of the Dutch congregation f 2 while still others 

2i Ev. Review, i: 194. Hazelius' History, p. 23. 

24 As late as 1873, the Church at Upper Merion, Montgomery co., still re- 
mained independent of the Episcopal Church, although ministered to by Epis- 
copal rectors. Reynolds' Acrelius, 350. 

25 Hall. Nach., 665. 26 Supra. 

27 The history of this colony is given with considerable fullness in the Docu- 
mentary History of New York, 3: 540-607. See especially the protest of Rev. 
Knoll against the transfer of the glebe to the English Church, p. 583. 

28 Fullest account in Bernheim, p. 67 seq. See also Ev. Review, 13: 19. 

29 For many cotemporary documents, see Doc. Hist, of N. Y., Vol. 3 ; also 
article of Ev. Review, above quoted; Schaeffer 72 seq.; Hazelius, 26. 

30 Hall. Nach., 74. Ev. Review, 13: 27. 31 U. S. Census for 1870. 
82 Ev. Revietv, 13: 24. Quart. Review, 7: 272. 



DR. JACOBS ESSAY. II3 

settled in Pennsylvania along the Swatara and Tulpehocken. 33 The 
Dutch congregations in New York and Loonenburgh were diligent 
in caring for their German brethren ; but in Pennsylvania, notwith- 
standing the ministrations of the Swedish pastors, the spiritual desti- 
tution among the Germans was appalling, and the people were at 
the mercy of impostors. The deputation sent to Europe in 1733 
by the churches of Philadelphia, New Hanover and Providence, 
present in the Halle Reports a sad picture of the condition of our 
Church at that time (< in a land full of sects and heresy, without 
ministers and teachers, schools, churches and books." 34 The result 
of this mission was the identification, with our succeeding history, 
of the names of Muhlenberg, Brunnholtz, Handschuh, Kurtz, 
Schaum, Schultze, Heintzleman, Helmuth, Schmidt and others, who 
were sent from Halle during the period from 1742 to 1769. We 
cannot dwell upon the almost superhuman labors of Muhlenberg 
and his associates, in contending with impostors, organizing churches, 
founding schools, preaching the Gospel from house to house as 
well as in churches, and diligently supplying the long-neglected 
wants of their countrymen. 

Meanwhile, in 1734, the Salzburgers, refugees from Romish per- 
secution, with their two ministers, Bolzius and Gronau, had settled 
at Ebenezer, Ga.; 35 and before the middle of the eighteenth cen- 
tury, a church had been established as far north as Maine, 36 and 
important centres had been formed in Maryland, Virginia, and the 
Carolinas. 

At the beginning of the nineteenth contury, the prospect pre- 
sented to an observer would have been as follows : The Minister- 
ium of Pennsylvania with its semi-centennial 37 already past, and 

33 Hall. Nach., 976. Schaeffer, 76. 34 Hall. Nach., 4. 

35 Prof. Walker, late Superintendent of the U. S. census, has fallen into the 
same error as Bancroft, in his paper in the volume, " The First Century of the 
Republic," p. 232, by referring to the Salzburgers as Moravians. Strobel, Bern- 
heim, Hazelius, Schaeffer, Muhlenberg's Journal in Ev. Review, I : 390, 534; 
2: 113; 3 : 115, 418, 582 ; 4: 172, and Dr. Stoever's memoirs of Bolzius, and 
J. E. and C. F. Bergman, Ev. Review, 9 : I, 13 ; 6: 553, give interesting de- 
tails. 

36 For the history of this congregation, see article of Dr. Pohlman, in Ev. 
Reviezu, 20: 440. 

37 The date of organization was August 14th, 1748. Hall. Nach., 284. 



114 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

the last of its founders 38 deceased for four years, embraced also 
Maryland and Virginia, and reported 53 ministers, 300 congrega- 
tions, and a population of 50,000 families. 39 The Ministerium of 
New York, organized fifteen years before with fourteen ministers, 40 
had decreased to eight. 41 At least six ministers were serving congre- 
gations in the Carolinas, 42 gathered three years afterwards into the 
North Carolina Synod. Altogether, after the efforts of one hun- 
dred and seventy-five years, we numbered less than 70 pastors, 
where we now have 2900. 43 Zion's ; the mother church in this city, 
of which Dr. Helmuth and Rev. Schmidt were the joint pastors, 
was strong, as may be inferred from the fact that in a year in which 
the mortality was not exceptional, 187 deaths are reported in the 
congregation. 44 It supported four parochial schools, with Dr. C. F. 
Endress, then a young man of twenty-five, as superintendent, at- 
tended by 250 pupils. 45 Dr. Helmuth 46 was also Professor in the 
University of Pennsylvania, in which he had succeeded his prede- 
cessor in the pastoral office, Dr. Kunze. Dr. F. D. Schaeffer was at 
Germantown; C. F. Wildbahn, after a pastorate of eighteen years, 
was still performing occasional ministerial acts at Reading; Dr. 
Henry Ernst Muhlenberg was at Lancaster ; Jacob Goering at 
York ; Henry Mueller at Harrisburg ; John Grob was organizing 
the church at Gettysburg; Dr. J. G. Schmucker was at Hagers- 
town ; Dr. Geo. Lochman, at Lebanon ; Dr. F. W. Geissen- 
hainer, sr., in Montgomery county; Dr. J. D. Kurtz, in Balti- 
more; Christian Streit, at Winchester, and J. G. Butler, missionary 
of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, in West Virginia and Ten- 
nessee. In the New York Ministerium, Dr. Kunze was pastor 
in New York, and Professor in Columbia College, while his 

38 The founders of the Ministerium were Dr. H. M. Muhlenberg, f 1787, the 
Swedish Provost Sandin, who died the same month that the Ministerium was 
organized, Handschuh, j- 1764, Brunnholtz, f 1758, Schaum, f 1778, J. N. 
Kurtz, I 1794, Hartwig, f 1796. Naesman, the second Swedish pastor, re- 
turned to Sweden a few years afterward, and the date of his death is uncertain. 

39 Hazard's Register of Pennsylvania, 4 : 372. 

40 Hazelius, 109. 41 Hazard, as above. 42 Do. 
43 Lutheran Almanac for 1878, 2905 ; Lutherische Kalender, 2914. 

44 Hazard's Register, 4: 373. 45 Hazard, do.; Ev. Review, 6 : 23. 

46 For the most of these data, see Stoever's Reminiscences, in Evangelical 
Review, and Sprague's Annals of the American Lutheran Pulpit. 



DR. JACOBS' ESSAY. I I 5 

English assistant Strebeck was organizing a congregation, which 
afterwards went over bodily to the Episcopal Church, not however 
until their pastor had preceded them several years 47 Farther south 
C. A. G. Stork and Paul Henkel were laboring as yet harmoniously 
in North Carolina, both in that very year astonished and confused 
by some of the earlier revival movements of this country. iS The 
venerable John N. Martin, for a quarter of a century pastor of the 
church at Charleston, S. C, had died only five years before; and 
the churches at Ebenezer and Savannah were still served by the 
elder Bergman. Dr. Kunze was acknowledged as among the first 
Oriental scholars in America, 40 J. F. Schmidt, of Philadelphia, was 
an accomplished astronomer, while Muhlenberg, of Lancaster, and 
Melsheimer, of Hanover, by their cultivation of special branches of 
Natural History, still hold an eminent place among naturalists. One 
of our ministers had been a Major-General in the Revolutionary 
army, and another, his brother, the first speaker of the National 
House of Representatives. Franklin College at Lancaster, under 
the joint control of Lutheran and Reformed, with Dr. H. E. Muh- 
lenberg as its first President, had been established thirteen years 
before. 50 The L T niversity of Pennsylvania and Dickinson College 
both contained among their trustees representative men of our 
Church. 51 Dr. Helmuth and Rev. Schmidt had for fifteen years 
already been conducting a private theological seminary in Phila- 
delphia, in which such men as J. G. Lochman, Endress, J. G. 
Schmucker, J. Miller, Baker, Butler, Goering, Baetes and others, 
were prepared for the ministry. 52 Two years after this, viz., in 1802, 
the labors of Dr. Lochman, sr., in the same direction, began. 53 
The introduction of English preaching was already agitating the 
congregations. Dr. Kunze, at an early period, had insisted on its 
necessity. At successive elections from 1 803-6 in the German church 
in this city, the opponents of English preaching prevailed by only a 
small majority. In the election of 1806, 1400 votes were polled, and 
as the result, a colony withdrew and founded St. John's, the first ex- 
clusively English Lutheran church in Pennsylvania. In 181 4, the 

47 Quarterly Review, 7: 278. 48 Bernheim, 350. 

49 See the opinions of Dr. Samuel Miller, of Princeton, and J. W. Francis* 
M. D., of New York, in Sprague's Annals, 55. 

50 Ev. Review, 10: 534. 51 Ev. Review, 10: 288, 2yo. 
52 Ev. Review, I o: 555 ; 6: 5. 53 Ev. Review, 6; 21. 



Il6 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

desire for English preaching again became strong in the German 
congregation, and led in the course of time to the founding of the 
second English church, St. Matthew's, whose guests we are to-day. 54 
These were not isolated occurrences, but symptoms of a movement 
that was manifesting itself throughout the entire country. So strong 
was it, that in 1805 the Ministerium of Pennsylvania felt the neces- 
sity of passing the enactment that it must remain a German speak- 
ing body, 55 and, in 1814, Drs. J. D. Kurtz and G. Lochman, in the 
name of the same Ministerium, published an address 56 devoted mostly 
to the necessity of maintaining German schools and German divine 
service. We can fully sympathize with the regret of these worthy 
men, that with the loss of the German language, the religious in- 
struction of the young was neglected, German diligence and frugal- 
ity abandoned, and the precious hymns, and prayers, and books of 
devotion forgotten ; yet that even adherence to the German would 
not necessarily preserve a congregation in the faith of our Church, 
was demonstrated by the sad history of the congregation of the ven- 
erable Dr. Kurtz himself. The anglicizing of the people was inevi - 
table ; and the call made upon the Church then, as now, was to so 
control this process that it would involve only a change of language, 
and not, at the same time, of faith. The New York Ministerium, 
owing perhaps to the presence of the Dutch element, 56 * the earlier 
German settlement, and the diminishing of the tide of German emi- 
gration to that State, was comparatively soon anglicized. As early 



54 Hazard's Register, 4 : 372. 

55 The resolutions are as follows : " 1. The present Lutheran Ministerium in 
Pennsylvania and adjacent States must remain a German-speaking Ministerium, 
and no proposition can be entertained which would render necessary any other 
language than the German, in Synodical meetings and business transactions. 
2. English-speaking Lutherans, who cannot understand the German service, 
may organize themselves into congregations of their own. 3. In case such 
English Lutheran congregations be established, the German Lutheran Ministe- 
rium will regard their members as brethren, and is willing to recognize their 
delegates, and also, after an examination, their ministers as members of Synod, 
provided they submit to its constitution, and attend the meeting of Synod." 
Passed at Germantown, June 12, 1805, and published in the " Ministerial Ord- 
nung"of 1813, p. 19. 

56 Address to " all the Germans of the United States, and especially the Ger- 
man inhabitants of Virginia." 

56» Ev. Review, 6: 327. 



DR. JACOBS ESSAY. I 1 7 

as 1 815, it was almost entirely English ; although, unfortunately, 
wanting in a clear confession of our faith, and hence unfit for the 
foundation of the work of our Church in the English language. 

Nor were the churches of that period deficient in missionary ac- 
tivity. In 1806, the Ministerium of Pennsylvania appointed three 
missionaries. One died. A second set out from New Market, Va., 
traveled southwest three hundred miles to the Great Kanawha; 
thence northwest sixty-six miles to Chillicothe; thence southwest 
forty miles to Brush Creek ; thence seventy miles to Lebanon ; 
thence north thirty miles to Montgomery Co., O. The report 
states: "Our tongue cannot describe the triumphs won by his 
presence, or depict the impression made on many hearts." The 
third traveled thirteen hundred miles in one hundred and twenty- 
two days, and preached sixty-seven times. A similar report was 
made to Synod two years later. 

Our first regular theological school, Hartwick Seminary, New 
York, was established in t8i6, 57 with Rev. Dr. Hazelius as the first 
professor of theology. In 1818, against the advice of the mother 
Synod, the Synod of Ohio was formed by the missionaries of the 
Ministerium of Pennsylvania, living west of the Alleghanies, and 
nine years afterwards numbered 25 ministers and 95 congrega- 
tions. 58 In 1820, the Synod of Maryland and Virginia was organ- 
ized, and the rupture occurred in the North Carolina Synod, that 
resulted in the formation of the Tennessee Synod. 59 The same 
year witnessed the convention held at Hagerstown, by the delegates 
of the Ministeriums of Pennsylvania and New York, and the Synods 
of North Carolina, and Maryland and Virginia, to form the Gen- 
eral Synod. 60 At the first convention of that body, held the suc- 
ceeding year, the New York Ministerium failed to appear. In 1823 
the Ministerium of Pennsylvania withdrew, 61 and as a consequence, 

57 The classical school at Hartwick was opened December 15th, 1815. Its 
charter as a theological seminary is dated August 10th, 1816. Hartwick Me- 
morial Volume, pp. 37, 38. 

58 Hazelius, 155. 

59 Bernheim, 440; Hazelius, 148; Luth. Intelligencer, passim. 

60 See the " Proposed Plan for a General Union of the Evangelical Lutheran 
Church in the United States of America," adopted by the Ministerium of 
Pennsylvania at Baltimore, in 1819. Ev. Reviezv, 12 : 590. 

61 The withdrawal of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania was not because of 



I 1 8 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

the churches west of the Susquehanna left the Ministerium in 1825, 
and, under the title of the West Pennsylvania Synod, remained in 
the General Synod. 62 One year before this, the South Carolina 
Synod was organized. At the end of the first quarter of the pres- 
ent century, our church had grown to 164 ministers, 475 congrega- 
tions, and 45,000 communicants. Of the congregations reported, 
no less than 100 were without pastors. e2 «. 

Three theological seminaries soon came into existence, and con- 
tributed largely to our further development, viz., in 1826, that of 
the General Synod at Gettysburg, and in 1830, that of the Ohio 
Synod at Columbus, and of the South Carolina Synod, first at New- 
berry, then at Lexington, then again at Newberry, and now trans- 
ferred to the General Synod of North America, and located at 
Salem, Va. 

The influence of a Lutheran press also began to make itself felt. 
As early as 181 1, the Ministerium of Pennsylvania started a synod- 
ical organ — in German — under the editorship of Dr. Helmuth and 
Rev. Schmidt, which ran its course in about three years. The Lu- 
theran Intelligencer, edited by Dr. D. F. Schaeffer, at Frederick, 
Md., from 1826-31; the Lutheran Magazine, edited by Dr. Lintner, 
and published for three years at Schoharie, N. Y. ; the Lutheran 
Observer, founded in 1831, and whose first editor is the president 
of this Diet; the Lutheran Preacher, published by Dr. Eichel- 
berger, at Winchester, Va., in 1833-4; the Lutheran Standard, 
founded in 1842, whose first editor, Dr. Greenwald, we had hoped 
to find with us to-day ; the Missionary of Dr. Passavant, founded 
in 1848; the Evangelical Lutheran, the Oliv e Branch, the Home 

dissatisfaction with the new organization, but because of the unreasonable fear 
prevalent in many of its congregations of an increase of ecclesiastical power. 
See the comparatively recent reference in " The Synod of Pennsylvania, and 
the late Convention at Ft. Wayne, Ind., 1866," p. 12 ; and the resolution on p. 
16, Minutes of 1823: " Resolved, That the above resolutions shall remain in 
force, until such time in the future as the congregations themselves shall see 
their mistake of our true intention, and shall call for a reconsideration of these 
resolutions." 

62 See manuscript record of the preliminary conference between Drs. J. G. 
and S. S. Schmucker and Rev* J. Herbst, in Library of Historical Society. 

62a See Address to the congregations of the West Pennsylvania Synod by 
Revs. Dr. J. G. Schmucker, J. G. Graeber and J. Herbst, 25, p. 2. 



DR. JACOBS' ESSAY. I 1 9 

Journal, the Lutheran, the Lutheran and Missionary, the Lutheran 
Watchman, the Lutheran Visitor, Our Church Paper, the Chicrch 
Messenger, the Evangelical Review, the Quarterly Review, not to 
mention any but English papers, 63 or even to make their list exhaust- 
ive, all have performed an important part in the development of the 
interests of the Church. With all the defects that have marred 
many of their issues, the Church owes to-day a great debt of grati- 
tude to its press. At present, every tendency within the Church 
that would assert its claims, feels the need of an organ, and for 
every advance the Church has made, the press has heralded the 
way. The utterances of our Church press carry more weight with 
them than even the resolutions of Synods, which are easily passed, 
and unless vigorously supported by the press, as a rule are soon for- 
gotten. 

We cannot enter into the details of the last fifty years. There 
are venerable men in this Diet, who have been prominently identi- 
fied with the movements of our Church in that period, to whom we 
must look for a full record of the struggles through which we have 
gathered the strength of to-day. A few facts, however, must be 
noticed. Such are the increase in strength of the General Synod, 
by the return, under certain clearly defined conditions, 63 " of the 

63 The principal German periodicals have been Das Evangelische Magazin of 
Helmuth and Schmidt, mentioned above; Das Evangelische Magazin of Rev. 
Herbst and Drs. S. S. Schmucker and E. L. Hazelius, Gettysburg, 1829-33; the 
Hirtenstimme and Kirchenbote of Rev. C. Weyl, Baltimore, of which the latter 
was afterwards edited at Gettysburg and Selinsgrove by Rev. Anstadt; the Lu- 
therische Kirchenzeitung, edited by Rev. F. Schmidt at Easton, Pa., for several 
years after 1838; the Jugenfreund; the Lutherische Zeitschrift, and Theo-Mon- 
atshefte of Pastor S. K. Brobst ; the Lutherische Herold, published in New 
York ; the Ltitherische Kirchenzeitung, published at Columbus, Ohio ; the 
Lekre und Wehre, Lutheraner, Magazin filr Ev. Ltith. Homilelik, of the Mis- 
souri Synod; the Kirchenblatt and Kirchliche Zeitschrift, of the Iowa Synod ; 
the Informatorium and Wachende Kirche, of the two sections of the Buffalo 
Synod ; the Gemeindeblatt, of the Wisconsin Synod ; the Kirchenblatt, of the 
Canada Synod; the Kirchenfreund, of the General Synod, etc. 

We enter upon 1878 with 60 periodicals, exclusive of Almanacs, viz., 27 Ger- 
man, 17 English, 4 Swedish, 12 Norwegian and Danish. In 1854, only 11 in 
all languages are reported. 

63a Minutes of New York Ministerium for 1836, p. 19; of Min. of Pa., 
1853, p. 18. 



120 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Ministerium of New York in 1837, and of Pennsylvania in 1853, 
and the admission of numerous other Synods, a few of which were 
very small and soon became extinct, or were merged into others. 
These Synods were the Hartwick, admitted in 1831, the South Car- 
olina in 1835, tne Virginia in 1839, the Synod of the West in 1841, 
the English, of Ohio, 61 the Alleghany, the Southwest Virginia, and 
East Pennsylvania in 1843, tne Miami in 1845, tne Illinois, South- 
west and Wittenberg in 1848, the Olive Branch in 1850, the Pitts- 
burgh, Texas and North Illinois hi 1853, the Kentucky, English 
District of Ohio and Central Pennsylvania in 1855, the North Indi- 
ana, South Illinois and English Iowa in 1857, Melanchthon in 1859, 
New Jersey in 1862, Minnesota and Franckean in 1864, Susquehanna, 
New York, Central Illinois and (second) Pittsburgh 65 in 1868, Kan- 
sas in 1869, Nebraska, Ansgari and German Maryland in 1875, 
Wartburg and Augsburg in 1877. The civil war caused a division 
in the General Synod, resulting in the withdrawal of the Synods of 
North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Southwest Virginia. 
A second division was occasioned by the admission of the Franckean 

64 The student of the history of our Synods is liable to be confused among 
the English Synods of Ohio. The original English Synod of Ohio was a dis- 
trict of the Joint Synod. In 1840 it split, one division remaining in the Joint 
Synod, and the other leaving it, and both claiming the name of English Synod 
of Ohio. In 1857, the body which left the Joint Synod, and united with the 
General Synod, changed its name to Eastern Synod of Ohio. The other body 
in time left the Joint Synod, and following the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, 
united with the General Synod in 1855, left it in 1866, aided in the organiza- 
tion of the General Council, and was finally merged, in 1872, into the English 
District Synod of Ohio (No. 2) and Pittsburgh Synod. The English District 
Synod of Ohio (No. 2) was formed after the separation of its predecessor from 
Joint Synod, participated in the organization of the General Council, and in 
turn also left the Joint Synod. The English District Synod of Ohio (No. 3) 
was formed after the separation of No. 2 from the Joint Synod, and still main- 
tains its connection, as one of the district Synods of that body. 

65At its Twenty-fourth Convention at Rochester, Pa., in 1866, the Pittsburgh 
Synod, by a vote of 50 to 23, left the General Synod, and at the next meeting 
by a vote of 63 to 21, adopted the "Fundamental Principles of Faith and 
Church Polity" of the General Council. The most of the minority, viz., ten 
ministers and seven laymen, withdrew, claiming the name and corporate 
rights of the entire body, on the ground of an alleged violation of the consti- 
tution by the majority. The action of the General Synod in 1868 approved 
this claim, by recognizing the minority as though no resolution of withdrawal 
had ever been passed. 



DR. JACOBS ESSAY. 121 

Syncd in 1864, which led the delegates of the Ministerium of 
Pennsylvania to withdraw, in view of the fact that the Franckean 
Synod had not as yet received the Augsburg Confession as its con- 
fession of faith. 66 Two years afterwards, the exclusion of the del- 
egates of the same Synod from the organization of the meeting at 
Ft. Wayne, resulted in the withdrawal of the Ministerium of New 
York, and the Synods of Pittsburgh, English Ohio, Minnesota and 
Texas, and the disbanding of the old Synod of Illinois. In the fall 
of i860, when the General Synod had reached its greatest numerical 
strength, it numbered 864 out of 13 13 ministers, and 164,000 out 
of 245,000 communicants, i. <?., two-thirds of the Lutheran Church 
in this country. In the fall of 1868, it had left 572 out of 1792 
ministers, and 86, coo out of 350,000 communicants, or one-fourth 
of the entire Church. Its comparative strength according to the 
latest statistics in the almanac, published for its churches, is 812 out 
of 2905 ministers, and 116,000 out of 605,000 communicants. 

C6 The resolution of admission was: " Resolved, That the Franckean Synod 
is received into connection with this Synod, with the understanding that said 
Synod, at its next meeting, declare, in on official manner, its adoption of the 
doctrinal articles of the Augsburg Confession, as a substantially correct exhibi- 
tion of the fundamental doctrines of the Word of God." Minutes of General 
Synod, 1864. p. 18. The report of the President of the Franckean Synod in 
1865, makes the following explanation: '* For a quarter of a century, we 
maintained a separate existence, but at last concluded to form a connection with 
it (the General Synod), as it might serve a good purpose to unite all the district 
synods in grand council, and as there was nothing in the constitution to burden 
our consciences. Our admission, however, was opposed by a party, mainly on 
the ground that we had not formally adopted the "Augsburg Confession;" and, 
as a compromise, we were required to adopt its doctrinal articles as a substan- 
dally correct exhibition of the fundamental doctrines of the Word of God. 
Thus qualified we could consistently adopt it. Now, however, we are asked to 
do much more; viz., to amend the constitution by inserting in it an unqualified 
recognition or endorsement of the entire Augsburg Confession, and bind it as 
a creed upon our Synods, and our consciences. Are we, my brethren, pre- 
pared to do this, to do violence to our honest convictions, and become the re- 
proach of Protestant Christianity? I hope not!" Minutes for 1865, p. 8.. 
The revised doctrinal basis of the General Synod, received, accordingly, only 
one vote, p. 39. 

In justice to many who voted for the admission of the Franckean Synod, it 
should yet be added, that they regarded the adoption of the constitution of the 
General Synod, by that body, a virtual adoption of the Augsburg Confession. 
Minutes of General Synod for 1864, p. 42. 
9 



122 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

The General Synod of North America, organized during the war 
in the Southern States, has embraced the Synods of North Carolina, 
South Carolina, Virginia, Southwest Virginia, Georgia, Mississippi 
and Holston. The Synod of North Carolina withdrew in 1871, 
and the Holston Synod in 1872. At the period of its greatest 
strength, it numbered 121 ministers, and 16,000 communicants; 
and is now reduced to 98 ministers, and 13,000 communicants. 

The General Council was organized by a convention at Reading, 
Pa., in 1866. At its first meeting at Fort Wayne in 1867, 
the Ministeriums of Pennsylvania and New York, the English 
Synod of Ohio, the Pittsburgh, the Wisconsin, the English District 
of Ohio, the Michigan, the Augustana, the Minnesota, the Canada 
and the Illinois Synods, united as full members ; while the German 
Iowa and the Joint Synod of Ohio accepted the invitation to be rep- 
resented by delegates, with the right of debate, but not of vote. At 
the succeeding meeting in Pittsburgh, the Synod of Texas was re- 
ceived; at Chicago in 1869, the withdrawal of the Synod of Wis- 
consin was announced; at Rochester, in 1871, the withdrawal of the 
Synods of Minnesota and Illinois, was also announced; in 1872, the 
Indiana Synod was admitted, and in 1874, the Holston Synod of 
Tennessee. The Joint Synod of Ohio ceased all connection with 
the Council after the first meeting. The German Synod of Iowa 
has been represented in every convention except one, while the 
Norwegian-Danish Augustana, since 1871, has maintained the same 
relation to the General Council as the Iowa Synod. At its first 
meeting, exclusive of synods in an anomalous relation, it numbered 
515 ministers and 136,000 communicants. The last official report, 67 
rejecting also the anomalous synods, gives 593 ministers and 175,000 
communicants; or, adding these two Synods, 743 ministers and 
197,000 communicants. 

The Synodical Conference was organized in 1872, and includes 
at present the Synods of Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin, Illinois, and 
Minnesota, the Norwegian Synod, and the English Conference of 
Missouri, numbering altogether 1076 ministers, and about as many 
communicants as in the General Synod and General Council com- 
bined, and nearly twice as many as in the General Synod in the time 
of its greatest numerical strength. The synods unconnected with 

67 Minutes of the General Council, 1877. 



DR. JACOBS ESSAY. 1 23 

general organizations scarcely amount in communicants to one 
twelfth of our entire number. 

Between 1825 and '35, our strength was more than doubled; be- 
tween 1835 and '53, it was again doubled; between 1853 and '68, 
it was doubled the third time ; and, from present indications, before 
1880 it will have been doubled for the fourth time. According to 
this, we are doubling our strength on an average every fourteen 
years, the ratio of increase in number of ministers not equaling, 
however, the increase of membership. 68 

68 The following data, gleaned from various trustworthy sources, give a gen- 
eral idea of our strength by Synods, previous to the publication of our Alma- 
nacs : 

1825 Min. Cong. Com. 

Ministerium of Pennsylvania 58 212 26,882 

" " New York 23 40 2,258 

Synod of North Carolina 7 27 1,147 

" Ohio -. 24 96 6,676 

" " Maryland and Virginia 30 48 5,137 

" " South Carolina 10 19 1,025 

" " Tennessee 11 ? ? 

163 442 43,125 

1834 

Ministerium of Pennsylvania 60 191 22,403 

" " New York 24 37 2,404 

Synod of North Carolina 12 24 1,621 

" " Ohio, Eastern District 21 60 8,168 

" " " Western " .'. 27 83 4,019 

" " Maryland 17 48 4,756 

" '' Tennessee 13 38 ? 

" " South Carolina 11 27 1,752 

" " West Pennsylvania 34 132 9,872 

" '•' Virginia 8 24 1,976 

Hartwick Synod 16 37 4,000 

243 703 60,971 
In 1833, the Lutheran Preacher (p. 80) estimated the Lutheran population 
in the United States as 750,000; while the N. Y. Ministerium (Minutes for 
1833, p. 25) claimed a population in that State of 50,000. 

An estimate by decades in Ev. Review, 7,298, supplemented by the statistics 
for 1863 and '73, gives : 

Min. Cong. Com. 

1823 175 900 38,036 

^33 337 1,017 59,358 

l8 43 43° i,37i 147,000 

1853 900 1,750 200,000 

1863 1,431 2,677 285,217 

l8 73 ■ 2,309 4,115 485>°8'' 



124 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

The increase in the first period of ten years, finds its explanation 
in the better organization of the churches, the increased supply of 
ministers, the establishment of literary centres, the increasing power 
of the press, and the growing activity, both in the General Synod 
and out of it, in home missionary work. But before many years, 
unless a new factor enter into the account, the ratio of this increase 
would necessarily be greatly diminished by the exhaustion of the 
fields for new work, and the limitation of the growth of the churches 
to the natural growth of their population. This new element we 
find in what we may regard the fourth basis for Lutheran Church 
development in America. The Dutch on the Hudson form the first, 
the Swedes on the Delaware the second, the Germans of the eigh- 
teenth century the third, and the Germans and the Scandinavians of 
the nineteenth century the fourth basis. Nine-tenths of the two 
General Synods, less than one half of the General Council, and 
about one-fourth of the members of^ Synods not included in any 
general organization, are the descendants of emigrants of the last 
century ; while nineteen-twentieths of the Synodical Conference, 
three-fourths of the independent Synods, one-tenth of the General 
Synod, and more than one-half the General Council, are either for- 
eign-born or the descendants of those who have come hither since 
1825. How vast the work that has been thus thrown upon our 
Church in America, and how small a fraction of the whole, we who 
represent the anglicized portion of the Church, are becoming, may 
be learned, when we find that the official reports of emigration 
enumerate, between TS20 and 1837, over 231,000 Swedish and Nor- 
wegian, and 34,000 Danish immigrants, all of whom, with a few 
exceptions, are Lutheran, and 2,764,000 German immigrants, 
among whom we are largely represented ; and that in the year 1873 

We make no attempt to reconcile the discrepancies between the tables. It is 
gratifying, however, to notice how closely ihe number of congregations reported 
by the census for 1870 accords with the almanacs. 

The two almanacs for 1878, that have attempted to compute the strength of 
the entire Church, report as follows : 

Min. Cong. Com. 

Lutherische Kalender (Brobst's) 2,914 5,136 655,529 

Lutheran Almanac (Kurtz) 2 >9°5 5»°°4 605,340 

The higher figures are the more trustworthy ; yet both almanacs in their esti- 
mates are manifestly too low, as the synodical parochial reports for 1S77 show 
many omissions. 



DR. JACOBS ESSAY. 1 25 

alone there were 34,000 Scandinavians and 133,000 Germans 
landed on 65 our shores. Hence, is it wonderful that our increase 
per annum equals now the entire strength of our Church in this 
country fifty years ago ? With a proportionate increase of a ministry 
fitted for pioneer work among those vast masses — hundreds of thou- 
sands of whom are our brethren in the faith — with the harmonious 
co-operation of the entire Church, and suitable provision to control 
the inevitable anglicizing of the foreign Lutheran population, so that 
their loss may be only one of language and nationality, but not of 
faith, ought not the rate of our Church's increase to be still greater? 
Are we not perhaps losing annually a number equal to the aggregate 
of the losses for the first two centuries that we so much deplore ? 

As fair an estimate as we can make from our personal knowledge 
of the field, upon the basis of the statistics gathered last year, 70 
gives 117,000 Scandinavians, ministered to by 349 pastors; 312,000 
foreign Germans, ministered to by 13 15 pastors, and about 210,000 
Americans and Pennsylvania Germans, minis ered to by 1042 pas- 
tors. Surely we can no longer be reckoned, as we were twenty-five 
years ago by Dr. Baird, in his "Religion in America," among the 
smaller Presbyterian bodies. 71 

This development upon the fourth basis has thus far been largely 
influenced by the Synod of Missouri. This Synod had its origin in 
a colony of Saxon Lutherans, who, with their six pastors emigrated 
to Perry Co., Mo., in 1839, as tne result, we are told in a narrative 
of a Missouri pastor, of a correspondence that their leader had in 
1830, with Dr. Benjamin Kurtz, of Baltimore. 72 Thus the mission 
of Dr. Kurtz to Germany, to procure funds for the Gettysburg The- 
ological Seminary, became indirectly the means of introducing into 
this country a powerful movement in favor of the strictest confes- 
sional Lutheran ism. Scarcely had they reached this country, when 
they found their leader a deceiver. Thrown upon their own re- 
sources, the six pastors with great faith at once applied themselves, 



69 Annual American Cyclopaedia for 1873. Another fact bearing upoi the 
future development of our Church, is that the last census showed that nearly all 
the Scandinavians had settled west of Lake Michigan, and two-thirds of the 
Germans west of Buffalo, New York. 

'o Church Almanac for 1877. 

71 Baird's " Religion in America," p. 516. 

72 Kostering's Auswanderung der sa.chsisch.en Lutheraner, p. 10. 



126 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

not only to the care of their people, but also to the work of educat- 
ing candidates for the ministry to labor among the scattered Ger- 
mans. Soon they were joined by others, especially by a number 
of ministers who had left the Synod of Ohio, on account of its 
alleged doctrinal laxity, and in 1847 tne combined body held their 
first synodical meeting with twenty-seven pastors. Much aid was 
derived for some years from the distinguished Lohe, of Neuendett- 
elsau, in Bavaria. Now they number over six hundred pastors, and 
support two theological seminaries, with over a hundred students, 
to say nothing of the other Synods, in which their influence amounts 
almost to a practical control. We should notice also in passing, as 
bodies of especial importance belonging to this fourth basis of de- 
velopment, the large Norwegian Synod, founded in the Northwest 
in 1859, w i tn i ts x 4 2 pastors and flourishing college at Decorah, 
Iowa ; and the Swedish Augustana Synod, nearly as old and almost 
on the same territory, with its 120 pastors and flourishing institu- 
tions at Rock Island, 111., in which, provident of the future, it sup- 
ports two English professors. 

Such are some of the general features of the external history and 
progress of our Church in the United States. Neither should its 
inner history be over-looked. 

1. Doctrinal Position. The Dutch Lutherans of New York in 
various documents, pledge themselves, sometimes to the Unaltered 
Augsburg Confession, 73 and sometimes to the Symbolical Books of 
our Lutheran Church. 74 The instructions to the Governor of New 
Sweden in 1642, charged him to see to it, "that divine service be 
zealously performed according to the Unaltered Augsburg Confes- 
sion. 75 The Halle Records repeatedly indicate that the foundation 
of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania was laid upon the Word of 
God, as confessed in the Augsburg Confession and the other Sym- 
bolical Books. 76 But near the close of the eighteenth century, no 
other confession but the Augustana was made binding, and at last 
even this requirement was sometimes omitted, as we find in the con- 
stitution of the New York Ministerium of 1816 ; 77 where it is laid 
down as a fundamental rule of the Synod, "that the person or- 
dained shall not be required to make any other engagement than 
this, that he will faithfully teach, as well as perform all other minis- 

73 Ev. Review, 6: 313. 1i Ev. Review, 13: 366 15 Acrelius, 39. 

™Ev. Review, 3 : 420 ; 5 : 208. Hall. Nach., 285; 1287. ' 7 P. 20. 



DR. JACOBS ESSAY. \2J 

terial duties, and regulate his walk and conversation, according to 
the Gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, as contained in 
Holy Scripture." Dr. S. S. Schmucker pertinently asks on the 
margin of the copy of this constitution, now in the Historical Lib- 
rary at Gettysburg: But "what is ' faithfully teaching' the Gos- 
pel of our Lord Jesus Christ?" It is generally acknowledged 
that especially in the New York Ministerium of that period very 
serious errors were prevalent. As an example of manifest in- 
difference to the interests of our Church, we need only refer 
to the resolution by that body in 1797: "That on account of 
an intimate relation subsisting between the English Episcopalian 
and Lutheran churches, the identity of their doctrine and the near 
approach of their church discipline, this consistory will never ac- 
knowledge a newly erected Lutheran Church, in places where the 
members may partake of the services of the said English Episcopal 
Church." 78 Three years before, the ministers of our Church in 
North Carolina had ordained Rev. R. J. Miller, as "an Episcopal 
minister," and charged him in his ordination certificate "to obey the 
rules,, ordinances and customs of the Christian society, called the 
Protestant Episcopal Church in America," 79 and then, with this 
understanding, permitted him to labor in Lutheran congregations for 
twenty-seven years. In 1821, the North Carolina Synod entered into 
an agreement with the Protestant Episcopal Church of the same State, 
whereby each body sent deputations to the conventions of the other, 
with the privilege not only of a voice, but also of a vote. 80 The 
reaction was natural, by which the members of the Tennessee 
Synod a few years later not only placed themselves upon a decidedly 
confessional basis, but went so far as to incorporate a provision in 

78 Ev. Review, 7: 533; 11 : 183. Yet in the minutes for 1824, we find lay- 
reading commended as a means of keeping together Lutherans, where they were 
without a pastor, and of " resisting the encroachments of other churches," p. 31. 

' 9 Bernheim, 339. 

80 Bernheim 450, sq. During this period the Episcopal Church was often 
popularly called the lt English Lutheran." See Eine Zuschrift von der Cor- 
poration Deutschen Lutherischen Ge?neine in Philadelphia" Germantown, 1805, 
p. 9 : " The expression German Evangelical Lutheran Doctrine is unusual to 
us ; and if any one should have used it, it perhaps was done in antithesis to 
the English Episcopal doctrine, which is called by many from ignorance Lu- 
theran, and English Lutheran." » 



128 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

their constitution that : "No subject whatever, which may be com- 
prehended under these Articles, shall be decided either according to 
a majority or a minority of votes ; but only according to the Holy 
Scriptures, and the Augsburg Confession of faith;" 81 and to send 
for consecutive years to the Ministerium of Pennsylvania formida- 
ble documents, challenging its Lutheranism, which the latter passed 
by in silence. 82 The great question that agitated our Church in 
this country for many years of the present century, was in sub- 
stance : "Shall we retain our historical connection with the Lutheran 
Church of our fathers, or shall we surrender the distinctive doc- 
trines for which they contended, and as a religious society become 
simply a member of the Reformed family of Churches by which we 
are surrounded?" This was the question that lay beneath nearly all 
our controversies. We were in danger of being carried away by 
the strongest currents prevalent for the time in the denominations 
around us. The doctrinal controversies concerning Original Sin 
and the Holy Sacraments, and the practical controversies concern- 
ing the necessity and obligation of confessions of faith, concerning a 
recension of the Augsburg Confession, concerning Old and New 

81 Minutes, 1827; p. 23. 

82 The questions addressed to the Ministerium of Pennsylvania in 1823 were: 

1. Do you believe that Holy Baptism, as it is administered with natural 
water, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, worketh forgiveness of 
sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives everlasting salvation ? 

2. Do you believe that the true body and blood of Christ is present in the 
Holy Supper, under the form of bread and wine, and is there communicated 
and received ? Do you believe also that the unbelieving guests of this meal 
eat and drink also the body and blood of Christ, under the form of bread and 
wine ? We ask not whether the unbelieving thereby receive the forgiveness of 
sins, but whether in this sacrament they receive also the body and blood of 
Jesus ? 

3. Do you believe that Jesus Christ should be worshiped as true God and 
man in one person ? 

4. Is it right that the Evangelical Lutheran Church should seek to unite in 
any religious form of government with those who deny the doctrine of the 
Augsburg Confession and Luther's Catechism ? or is it right that Lutherans 
should go with such to the Holy Supper ? 

5. Is your Synod hereafter to be governed by a majority of votes? 

6. Do you still intend to present the excuse that " Jesus Christ, the Supreme 
Head of His Church, has prescribed no specific directory for its government 
and discipline," a* is said in the constitution of the General Synod ? Min., p. 13. 



DR. JACOBS ESSAY. 1 29 

Measures, concerning orders of service in divine worship, can be 
traced to external influences ; and our Church was in danger of 
perishing on this continent from a lack of self-assertion, and a for- 
getfulness of her mission from the very beginning as a teacher to all 
nations and all Churches, of the very purest form of the Gospel. 
There were, of course, other elements that entered into these move- 
ments. The intense subjectivism of Pietism prepared the way here 
as in Europe for dangers from Rationalism. The desolation wrought 
in the mother country only touched our shores with its remotest 
and feeblest waves ; yet these were sufficient to cause an undervalu- 
ing by otherwise excellent men, of those strongholds of the Chris- 
tian faith, the distinctive doctrines of our Church. Then, on the 
other hand, it must be confessed that the partisan zeal, bitter spirit, 
and imprudent counsels of some who in the period of greatest indif- 
ference protested against the prevailing laxity, were adapted to repel 
rather than attract earnest men. Our ministers (and we would give 
due honor to those venerable men, so abundant in labors and sacri- 
fices,) were so overwhelmed in their work, that they had little time for 
special studies. The cotemporary literature that came from Ger- 
many, was infected with the poison abounding there. With the 
anglicizing of the people, the congregations were left without a 
Lutheran literature. Earnest and devout members of our congrega- 
tions were naturally led to procure and read the devotional and 
practical works of other Churches, to the neglect of the rich ascetic 
literature in which our Church abounds. John Arndt, Scriver, 
Gerhard, Heinrich Mueller, Herberger, were replaced by Baxter, 
Doddridge, Bunyan, Wesley, Edwards. Many candidates for the 
ministry were instructed in the schools of other Churches, and, even 
though on their guard, unconsciously drew in the spirit of these 
Churches, acquiring with much that was truly precious, much also 
that obscured the strength and simplicity of the Evangelical faith. 
The English churches had the start of our Lutheran peasantry in 
education and general intelligence, and, by a higher social position, 
presented attractions for those not well grounded in the faith; while 
intermarriage also contributed its element to the confusion ; some- 
times to our gain, more frequently to our loss. Non-Lutheran Sun- 
day-schools, and the repetition in Lutheran schools by unwary 
teachers of what they had drawn from authorities prejudiced against 
our Church and its doctrines, also had their influence against us. 



13° FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

The only wonder is that the result was not worse ; and that there 
was anything of Lutheranism left among us. Yet the devotional 
works of our Church were still read in many a quiet corner; the 
German hymns were not altogether forgotten, and, even when no 
longer heard in public service, brought comfort and joy to many an 
aged servant of Christ; Luther's Catechism was still taught in the 
Church, and even when neglected in the Sunday-school, or sup- 
planted 82 ' 1 by imagined improvements, was handed down for gen- 
erations from the memory of pious parents, and more than anything 
else except the Holy Word itself preserved and nourished our vital- 
ity during that season of trial. Many a devout but uneducated lay- 
man, many a plain but thoughtful mother, was thus shaping in the 
family the future theological course of a new generation in the 
ministry. 

The Lutheran Church in the United States has certainly made 
great progress within the last twenty-five years in fuller acquaint- 
ance, higher appreciation and heartier acceptance of the theology 
of the Reformation — a progress manifested not simply in the doc- 
trinal tests of our general organizations, 83 our synods, our seminaries, 

82a Resolution of N. C. Synod in 1825 : "As the complaint is universal, that so 
many different English catechisms are circulating under the name of Lutheran, 
and which are partly abridged or not well translated, it was unanimously 
Resolved, That none of our ministers can receive any catechism, thereby to in- 
struct children, which in the articles of faith or doctrinals departs from Dr. 
Luther's Small Catechism ; because we are bound by the constitution of the 
General Synod of our Church, to make no change in the doctrine of the 
Church." Minutes, p. II. 

*' In consequence of the long delay of the committee appointed by the last 
session of the General Synod, to have an exact translation of Dr. Martin Luther's 
Catechism printed," etc. Minutes of N. C. Synod for 1826, p. 6. 

See some excellent remarks by Dr. Hazelius on the spiritual desolation 
resulting from neglect of catechisation, in Minutes of N. Y. Ministerium, 1830, 
p. 26. 

83 CONFESSIONAL BASES OF THE PRINCIPAL LUTHERAN BODIES IN AMERICA. 

I. The General Synod. 
" We receive and hold, with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of our fathers, 
the Word of God, as contained in the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testaments, as the only infallible rule of faith and practice, and the Augsburg 
Confession, as a correct exhibition of the fundamental doctrines of the Divine 
Word, and of the faith our Church founded upon that Word." 

II. The General Synod in North America [South). 
" We receive and hold that the Old and New Testaments are the Word of 



DR. JACOBS ESSAY. I3I 

but in the change that can be readily discerned in the entire habit 
of many of the Churches which we have classified as belonging to the 
third basis of Lutheran development in America. A leaven is work- 
ing, slowly it may be, yet none the less surely, which encourages the 
hope that in the not very remote future we may be able to apply 
ourselves with greater harmony to the great work before us in this 
country. Our greatest danger lies in our impatience, that the pro- 
cesses in operation do not advance with sufficient rapidity. Where, 
however, is the openly proclaimed Rationalism and Socinianism of 
the first part of this century ? Where is the body claiming to be 

God, and the only infallible rule of faith and practice. We likewise hold that 
the Apostles' Creed, the Nicene Creed, and the Augsburg Confession, contain 
the fundamental doctrines of the sacred Scriptures ; and we receive and adopt 
them as the exponents of our faith." 

III. The General Council. 

" We accept and acknowledge the doctrines of the Unaltered Augsburg Con- 
fession in its original sense, as throughout in conformity with the pure truth of 
which God's Word is the only rule. We accept its statements of truth, as in 
perfect accordance with the canonical Scriptures. We reject the errors it con- 
demns, and we believe that all which it commits to the liberty of the Church, 
of right belongs to that liberty." 

"In thus formally accepting and acknowledging the Unaltered Augsburg 
Confession, we declare our conviction that the other Confessions of the Evan- 
gelical Lutheran Church, inasmuch as they set forth none other than its system 
of doctrine, and articles of faith, are of necessity pure and Scriptural. Pre- 
eminent among such accordant, pure and Scriptural statements of doctrine, by 
their intrinsic excellence, by the great and necessary ends for which they were 
prepared, by their historical position, and the general judgment of the Church, 
are these : the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles, the 
Catechisms of Luther, and the Formula of Concord, all of which are with the 
Unaltered Augsburg Confession, in the perfect harmony of one and the same 
Scriptural faith." 

IV. The Synodical Conference. 

" The Synodical Conference acknowledges the canonical Scriptures of the 
Old and New Testament, as God's Word, and the Confession of the Evangeli- 
cal Lutheran Church of 1580 called ' the Concordia,' as its own." 

V. The North Carolina and Tennessee Synods. 

11 We believe that the Unaltered Augsburg Confession is, in all its parts, in 
harmony with the Word of God, and is a correct exhibition of doctrine." 

" We believe that the Apology, the Catechisms of Luther, the Smalcald Ar- 
ticles, and the Formula of Concord, are a faithful development and defence of 
the Word of God, as set forth in the Augsburg Confession." 



I3 2 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Lutheran that any longer ventures to reject the Augsburg Confes- 
sion, or even to adopt a mutilated recension of the same? What, 
too, has been the fate of bcoks which a quarter of a century ago 
were considered standard among English-speaking Lutherans, that 
avowedly rejected, and attempted to refute parts of our Confession? 
And where does the strength of Synods, whose acceptance of the 
Lutheran faith is said to be least decided, lie? What congregations 
manifest the steadiest growth and the greatest permanent activity 
but those among them administered most in the spirit of our Confes- 
sion ? A few hours' study of the parochial reports will furnish the 
answer. It is true that success, measured by earthly standards, will 
never be the lot of a pure Church ; yet manifest tokens of the divine 
presence with us should not be overlooked. 

2. Church Government. The foundation for the general form of 
the constitutions of congregations, that has been in use in most of 
the churches of the General Council and the two General Synods, 
was laid by the fathers of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania. The 
constitution of the German church in Philadelphia 84 provided for a 
church council, elected by the congregations, consisting of trustees, 
elders and deacons. Under this provision, Muhlenberg and Hand- 
schuh were both elected trustees, and thus made members of the 
church council. The constitution prepared by Muhlenberg, in 1 75 7, 
for the Church in Georgia, differs in this particular, as it prescribes 
that the church council shall consist of "the oldest minister as 
president, and the regular elected deacons." 85 

3. Worship. Owing to the wide extent of territory embraced in 
the charges of our earlier pastors, but few of their congregations 
enjoyed Divine service every Lord's day. The Swedish pastors 
often had a double service in the morning, the first consisting of a 
hymn or the Te Deum, a sermon on some parts of the catechism, a 
prayer and concluding hymn, followed by an explanation of the ser- 
mon, and examination upon it by the teacher. Then came the 
principal service, called "High Mass," in which the order of the 
Church in the mother country was observed. 83 The German Lu- 
therans of Pennsylvania of the last century, at an early period, pre- 
pared a liturgy on the basis of that of the Savoy congregation in 
London." In 1747, Muhlenberg prescribed to Rev. Schaum an 

84 H. N., 964. 85 Ev. Keviexu, 3 : 126. 86 Acrelius, 218. 

w " We took the printed Kirchen-Agenda of the Evangelical German con- 



DR. JACOBS ESSAY. I 33 

order which he was to observe invariably in public service, 88 viz. : 
1. Confession. 2. Gloria in Excelsis. 3. A Scriptural Prayer. 4. 
Reading of the Epistle. 5. A familiar hymn. 6. Reading of the 
Gospel, followed by the Creed. 7. Singing of a hymn, during which 
the minister ascends the pulpit. 8. Sermon. 9. Reading of a litur- 
gical prayer. 10. Catechisation of the children. The Order of Ser- 
vice in the Church in Georgia in 1757, 89 differs in its details, but 
comprises an opening prayer that is read, the use of the Gospel 
and Epistle for the day, the reading of a general prayer or the use 
of the Litany after the sermon, always ending with the Lord's 
Prayer. The Liturgy of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania of 1786, 90 

gregation at Savoy in London, as the foundation, because we had no other at 
hand." H. N., 676. 

88 Ev. Review, 7 : 544. 

89 Ev. Review, 3 : 423 : " The order of the public worship of God on Sun- 
days and festivals, shall be observed and conducted in the two principal 
churches, as follows : (1) In the morning at the usual time, the minister com- 
mences with a prayer out of the London Liturgy, or a suitable prayer out of J. 
Arndt's Paradies Gartlein; (2) the schoolmaster reads a portion of the Holy 
Bible, following in order the prayer; (3) a hymn is given out by the minister 
from the Halle Hymn Book ; (4) the minister reads either the appointed Gospel 
or Epistle ; (5) another hymn is announced ; (6) the minister prays extempora- 
neously, and closes with the Lord's Prayer ; (7) he reads either the Gospel or 
Epistle, or text from which he intends to preach; (8) the sermon follows, con- 
cluded with prayer ; (9) the minister reads the general prayer in the London 
Liturgy, or the Litany in the Hymn-book, and closes with the Lord's Prayer; 
(10) Publications are made ending with an Apostolic wish ; the congregation 
sings, and is dismissed with the Benediction of the Lord. 

90 The order in the Liturgy of 17S6 is as follows : 1. A suitable hymn. 2. 
The minister goes before the altar, and makes the exhortation to confession, 
and the confessional prayer, ending with the Kyrie. 3. He pronounces the 
votum : " The Lord be with you," to which the congregation reply, "And with 
thy Spirit." 4. He prays again, either extemporaneously or one of the Morn- 
ing prayers in the Ilymn-Book. 5. Reading of the Epistle. 6. The principal 
hymn, during which he ascends the pulpit. 7. The sermon, which may be pre- 
ceded by the Lord's Prayer and the Gospel for the day. 8. He prays either 
the prescribed General prayer or the Litany, and must not vary from this rule 
without necessity. The prayer closes with extemporaneous intercessions for the 
sick, if desired, and Lord's Prayer. 9. Necessary notices then are given. 10. 
He pronounces the benediction, " The peace of God which passeth all under- 
standing, keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus unto everlasting life. 
Amen." 11. Several stanzas are then sung, during which alms may be col- 



134 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

the English Hymn Books of the churches in New York at the close 
of the last century, 91 and the record of Dr. Geo. Lochman in his 
little volume on the Lutheran Church, 92 all present similar forms. 

lected for the poor. 12. The minister comes again before the altar, and again 
pronounces the votum, which is responded to by the congregation. 13. He 
prays an extemporaneous prayer, or the short form given in the Liturgy. 14. 
Singing of " the Lord preserve our coming in and going out," or of a stanza of 
a hymn, at the discretion of the minister. Pp. 1-12. 

91 The following is the order in the " Collection of Evangelical Hymns, 
made from different authors, and collections for the English Lutheran Church 
in New York. By George Strebeck, New York : 1797." 

I. Singing. 2. Exhortation to Confession. 3. Confessional Prayer, closing 
with the Kyrie. 4. " The Lord be with you," responded to by the congrega- 
tion : "And with thy Spirit." 5. An extemporaneous or read prayer, at the 
discretion of the minister. 6. The Gospel and Epistle for the day. 7. Singing. 
8. Sermon. 9. The invariable use either of a prescribed general prayer or the 
Litany, closing with the Lord's Prayer. 10. Announcing of the hymn, and the 
sentence : " The peace of God which passeth all understanding," etc. 11. The 
minister descends from the pulpit, and pronounces again : " The Lord be with 
you," responded to again by the congregation, makes a short prayer, either 
according to a given form, or extemporaneously, and concludes with the patri- 
archal benediction. 

That prescribed in the " Hymn and Prayer Book for the use of such Lutheran 
Churches as use the English Language, collected by John C. Kunze, D. D., 
senior of the Lutheran clergy in the State of New York, New York: 1795," is 
almost identical with the order given by Mr. Strebeck. A copy of both vol- 
umes is in the Library of Pennsylvania College, and of the Lutheran Historical 
Society. 

92 " Public worship is at present regulated and conducted in the following 
order : The beginning is made by a few passages of Scripture, or by a short 
ejaculation, and by singing a hymn. Prayers are then read, consisting of con- 
fession of sins, praise and thanksgiving, petition and intercession; or the min- 
ister may pray ex tempore. A portion of Scripture is read, which may be either 
the Gospel or Epistle for the day, or any other portion suited to the occasion, 
and relating to the subject on which the sermon is preached. Another hymn 
is sung. Then the sermon is preached, which should not take up more than 
three-quarters of an hour. Before sermon, a short prayer may be offered up, 
but after sermon, it is considered necessary to pray. Another hymn is sung, 
during which or before which the alms are collected. The congregation is dis- 
missed with the benediction. In some congregations, a doxology is sung after 
the benediction." " History, Doctrine, and Discipline of the Evangelical 
Lutheran Church," by George Lochman, A. M., Harrisburg, 1818, p. 151. 



DR. JACOBS' ESSAY. 1 35 

In all parts of the Church, the Church year was diligently observed. 93 
Its omission in some of our English churches has been a devia- 
tion of a comparatively modern period. The sermons of the earlier 
ministers- were generally prepared by the writing out of a very full 
and well arranged scheme, which was thoroughly committed. Sev- 
eral manuscript volumes of such schemes by Dr. Kunze, are in the 
library of Pennsylvania College. Dr. Helmuth writes of his col- 
league, Schmidt, that whereas his Mss. contained dispositions on 
nearly all the texts in the Bible, yet that he left only two sermons 
that were written in full. 94 However inconsistent with the rules the 
practice may have been, yet the Kirchen-Ordnung of 1763 forbids 
the filling of the pulpit in the pastor's stead, " by any preacher or 
student who has not been examined and regularly called and 
ordained, according to our Evangelical Church Constitution." 95 
The value they placed upon the Sacrament of Holy Baptism is 
manifest from the care which our fathers took to have their children 
baptized at the earliest age. 96 

We have thus briefly traced a few of the features of our inner his- 
tory. The great problem before us now is to properly avail our- 
selves of this history in laying broad and deep the foundation for the 
promising future that is opening for our Church. The individualism 
which most of us have inherited from our German ancestors, must be 

93 Aci-elius and Hall. Nach., passion. See orders of service given above. 
The following from the constitution of the Church in Georgia is worthy of note: 
'• As has been customary from the beginning, the three grand festivals, Christ- 
mas, Easter and Pentecost shall be celebrated two days ; also shall be cele- 
brated New Year's day, Epiphany, the anniversary of our fathers' arrival be- 
tween the 9th and nth of March; Maundy Thursday (when the doctrine of 
the Lord's Supper shall be especially explained for edification), and Good 
Friday, every year. From Esto Mihi until Easter, in the afternoon service, the 
history of the sufferings of our Lord and Saviour shall be propounded and ex- 
plained, catechetically and paragraphically, either from an Evangelist or from 
a Harmony approved by our venerable fathers." Ev. Review 3 : 424. All 
the older Church records show that they followed invariably the Church year. 

^Evangelisches Magazin, Vol. 2 (1813), p 7. 95 Hall. Nach., 963. 

96 The earliest records of our churches in Adams county, served in the last 
century by Pastor Bager, give abundant testimony on this point. Here is one 
memorandum we have made : Out of 61 children baptized in the Benders' con- 
gregation, the age of 8 is not given, 23 were baptized under the age of one 
month, 23 between one and two months; the oldest baptized was between seven 
and eight months, while one was baptized when two days old, a second when 



I $6 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

subordinated to the welfare of the whole. The progress of our one Lu- 
theran Church must be esteemed of more importance than that of any 
particular branch. Development on the third and fourth bases is to be 
rendered harmonious; not by the dominancy of either party, but by 
the careful study, and the humble submission of both to the unerring 
Word of God. German love of liberty, conscientiousness, cordiality, 
respect for antiquity, delight in research, steadfast courage and un- 
daunted perseverance; Swedish seriousness, devoutness and sub- 
jection to law ; Norwegian vigor and purity ; Danish caution, 
thoughtfulness and love of peace ; Icelandic simplicity, generosity 
and earnestness in religion; Finnish affection and tenderness, are to 
unite with American enterprise, energy and love of the practical, on 
the vast plane for development amidst varied elements almost in 
perpetual motion, opened for our Church on this continent. We 
have much to learn from one another. We lament our divisions, 
and all declare them to be wrong. Yet each of our general bodies 
has, perhaps, a special office in the present emergency to train the 
Church of the future for its high mission; and, on the one hand, to 
guard against Rationalism and Infidelity, and, on the other, to 
transmit the influences of our Lutheran faith to other communions. 
For as we believe that our Church teaches the gospel in its purest 
form, so also we hope and pray not only that all who bear our name, 
but also all Christian people in this land, may confess it as such. 

We are yet in a formative state. Our Church feels bewildered 
amidst its new surroundings, and confused by many of the entirely 
new issues that she encounters, and modes of adaptation necessary 
in this western world. She has learned some lessons by bitter ex- 
perience ; she is learning others by new trials. The age of experi- 
ments is gradually yielding to that of sober and mature manhood; 
and beneath all, there is the vigor and enthusiasm and perpetual 
youth of a strength derived from the possession of the truth, that 
must triumph finally over all obstacles, and result, after many strug- 
gles and apparent defeats, in a Church united upon the foundation 
of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief 
corner-stone. 



four days old, a third when eight, and three when nine days old. The records 
at Arndstown, and those at Christ's church, Liltlestown, during the pastorate of 
Wildbahn (1763), show that the practice there was the same. 



DISCUSSION. 137 

REMARKS OF REV. F. W. CONRAD, D. D. {General Synod) 

Dr F. W. Conrad said : In referring to the history of the Gen- 
eral Council, the author of the instructive paper just read stated, 
that the Franckean Synod had been received by the General Synod 
without having adopted the Augsburg Confession. This statement, 
according to my recollection, I regard as, strictly speaking, incor- 
rect. The facts of the case are these : 

Dr. B. Kurtz, President of the General Synod, was requested by 
letter to inform the members of the Franckean Synod what they 
must do in order to be admitted into the General Synod. He re- 
plied, that nothing more was necessary than to adopt the Constitu- 
tion of the General Synod, and appoint the requisite number of 
delegates. The constitution of the General Synod was accordingly 
adopted by the Franckean Synod, and delegates appointed to the 
General Synod. 

The Constitution of the General Synod provided that any " regu- 
larly constituted Lutheran Synod, holding the fundamental doctrines 
of the Bible, as taught by our Church," might be received into con- 
nection with it. These doctrines are set forth, according to unani- 
mous consent, in the Augsburg Confession. Now, although the 
Franckean Synod had not directly adopted the Augsburg Confession, 
they had indirectly and really adopted it by adopting the Constitu- 
tion of the General Synod, and thereby declared that they held "the 
fundamental doctrines of the Bible as taught by our Church," in the 
Augsburg Confession. This was tantamount to its adoption by a 
formal resolution, and imposed the same confessional obligation. 
It pledged the synod to teach " the doctrines of our Church," as 
taught in the Augsburg Confession. The delegates of the Franckean 
Synod, accordingly, declared in writing that their Synod clearly 
understood that, in adopting the Constitution, it adopted the doctrinal 
basis of the General Synod, as expressed in its formula for subscrib- 
ing the Augsburg Confession contained in its Formula of Govern- 
10 



I38 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

merit and Discipline. But, as the General Synod imposed upon 
the Franckean Synod, as a condition of full reception, the formal 
adoption of the Augsburg Confession, according to its Formula; 
and as it did not receive its delegates at Fort Wayne until after 
being certified that the imposed condition had been complied with, 
its reception at York was only conditional, and the Franckean 
Synod was not fully admitted into the General Synod until it had 
formally adopted the Augsburg Confession. 

The construction and confessional force which we have given to 
the adoption of its Constitution has been exemplified by the official 
acts of the General Synod. Neither the New York Ministerium, 
nor the Pittsburgh Synod, nor the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, had 
by express resolution adopted the Augsburg Confession, prior to 
their applications for admission into the General Synod. But they 
had all adopted the Constitution of the General Synod, by which 
they declared that they held " the fundamental doctrines of the Bible 
as taught by our Church." This the General Synod construed as 
involving a real, although indirect, adoption of the Augsburg Con- 
fession, and constituted each one of them, as well as the Franckean 
Synod, " regularly constituted Lutheran Synods," in the sense of 
the Constitution. 

In the heat of the discussion the fact was overlooked that, as "no 
man can serve two masters," neither can a Synod be governed and 
characterized by two different confessions. As soon, therefore, as 
the Franckean Synod adopted the Constitution of the General Synod, 
it subjected itself to the Augsburg Confession, and became Lutheran. 
And by necessary consequence, it could no longer be held subject 
to its former confession, and ceased to be an isolated, separatistic 
body. 

It may not be amiss to recall and improve another occurrence 
at York. God is said to have the hearts of all men in His hand, and 
.that He can turn them as He doth the rivers of water. He accord- 
ingly governs the Church, through the sincere convictions and con- 
scientious judgment of its ministers and members. When, therefore, 



DISCUSSION. 139 

an important ecclesiastical question has been thoroughly discussed 
and a decision reached by an almost or quite unanimous vote, that 
judgment ought to be regarded as determining the question for 
the time being under existing circumstances. To disturb a decision 
thus attained immediately afterwards, without additional light and 
the most urgent necessity, must be hazardous, and its reversal often 
proves to have been ill-advised, unfortunate, and not unfrequently 
wrong. 

Such a case occurred at York. Differences of opinion prevailed 
in regard to the character and continued force of the Articles of 
Faith of the Franckean Synod, as well as its adoption of the Augs- 
burg Confession. The subject was discussed during an entire day 
and an almost unanimous decision reached at its close. This de- 
cision was reconsidered the next morning, and after a long and an 
exciting debate, reversed. A protest signed by members of ten 
Synods was presented, an answer followed, the delegates of the 
Pennsylvania Synod withdrew, the General Synod was rent in twain 
and the Lutheran Church again divided ! While, therefore, I 
maintain that the Franckean Synod had met the constitutional 
requirements of the General Synod, and cannot justify the grounds 
upon which the delegates of the Pennsylvania Synod withdrew 
from it, I am nevertheless compelled, in the light of the facts of this 
case, and all. the consequences resulting therefrom, to regard the 
reversal of that decision as one belonging to the class of injudicious 
decisions just described. Some " things are lawful, but not" always 
"expedient." But He who can make even the wrath of man to 
praise Him, can and will overrule all things for the good of His 
Church. 

REMARKS OF REV. PROF. J. A. BROWN, D. D. {General Synod.) 

There will be but one opinion, I suppose, in regard to the value 
of the paper which has been read. It presents a very clear narrative 
of some of the most important events in our history, and is just 
what many will desire to possess. I will venture to make a few addi- 



140 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

tional statements on the point raised by Dr. Conrad's speech. The 
General Synod was not hasty in its action. After long discussion, 
the General Synod declined to receive the Franckean Synod on the 
ground of its not having adopted the Augsburg Confession. Sub- 
sequent to this action the delegation presented a paper, stating that 
in adopting the Formula of the General Synod, they understood 
they were adopting the Augsburg Confession as their confession of 
faith, and pledging themselves to comply with the requirement of 
the General Synod in this respect. The question of their reception 
was reconsidered, and they were received, but only provisionally ; 
that unless satisfactory evidence was furnished of their acceptance 
of the Augsburg Confession, they would not be considered in the 
General Synod. And accordingly at the next meeting, at Fort 
Wayne, these delegates were not received until after the organiza- 
tion, and the evidence furnished that they had fully complied with 
the conditions of their reception. The action of the General Synod 
was very cautious and conservative. 

This recalls another case which deserves to be mentioned. The 
Melanchthon Synod made application for admission into the General 
Synod under circumstances very similar to those of the Franckean 
Synod, and met with similar opposition. It was maintained that 
the Melanchthon Synod had not adopted the Augsburg Confession, 
or fairly complied with the conditions of admission. Its whole history 
was regarded as irregular and not very Lutheran. The opposition 
was very decided and persistent. Yet the General Synod received the 
Melanchthon Synod, without imposing conditions, but with a very 
humble request that it would conform its position to the require- 
ments of the General Synod. There were no withdrawals of dele- 
gates, nor divisions in the body. I hope I will not be deemed dis- 
courteous, when I remind the Diet that my friend, Dr. Krauth, was 
the champion at that time of the Melanchthon Synod, and of its ad- 
mission into the General Synod. Unless my memory is at fault, he 
drew up the resolutions for the admission of the Melanchthon Synod, 



DISCUSSION. 141 

using such gentle terms, and withstood the opposition. Times have 
changed. 

Now I do not see on what grounds so much ado is made by some 
over the reception of the Franckean Synod, while the reception of 
the Melanchthon Synod is justified. It seems to me that the action 
of the General Synod was more cautious and more conservative at 
York than at Pittsburgh. I think the action of the General Synod at 
York can be consistently defended, and that that body is not respon- 
sible for the consequences. 

REMARKS OF REV. PROF. C. P. KRAUTH, D. D., LL. D. 
{General Cozincil.) 

Dr. Krauth spoke in terms of strong commendation of the paper 
read by Prof Jacobs. It shows great thoroughness of research, 
especially in directions where the difficulty of obtaining facts can 
only be estimated by one who has had occasion to attempt the same 
sort of work. It is clear, well arranged, presenting facts in just 
proportion, and with the most absolute fairness. The production of 
this paper alone would have repaid for the calling of this Diet. 

As the Franckean Synod had been brought into the discussion, he 
would take the opportunity of correcting a misapprehension in 
regard to the position of his venerated father on that question. His 
father was quoted as one who held the ruling at Ft. Wayne to be 
correct, and there his testimony was supposed to end. It was true 
he did so regard it, and looked upon the Pennsylvania Ministe- 
rium as having put itself out of the General Synod by the with- 
drawal of its delegates at York. But he constantly added, with no 
reserve as of a thing spoken confidentially, as all who heard him 
speak of it can testify, that "the admission of the Franckean Synod 
was an outrage, fully justifying the Ministerium of Pennsylvania in 
withdrawing ; and that the only matter of regret was that having with- 
drawn for so righteous a cause, it should have endeavored to return." 
The action at the close of the first day was of the gentlest and most 



142 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

conciliatory kind. It completely harmonized the General Synod. 
The Franckean Synod itself was not dissatisfied — so reasonable and 
moderate was the action. The influences which disturbed the set- 
tled question were at work outside of the hours of meeting, and 
were partisan and mischievous. The Franckean Synod had not 
undergone any very radical change from the time when the General 
Synod had passed a resolution condemning its fanatical and disor- 
derly practices. The whole debate showed that it was completely 
un-Lutheran, and that there had been no intelligent conformity with 
the requirements of the Constitution. After its reception at York, 
many of the best men in the General Synod, some of whom are still 
among its most honored names, united in protest against the admis- 
sion. 

In reply to Dr. Brown, Dr. Krauth said that he had not been 
the champion of the Melanchthon Synod ; on the contrary, he had 
strongly opposed, on principle, its admission. But when the facts 
showed that the precedents established in the admission of a num- 
ber of other Synods, and the retention of various bodies which 
openly threw away the Augsburg Confession for the Definite Plat- 
form, had made it gross inconsistency and virtual self-destruction 
for the General Synod to reject the Melanchthon Synod, he had 
offered as the best thing the case allowed, that to the reception 
of the Melanchthon Synod should be attached a request that it 
should take action which would remove the causes of offence. This 
was all, in fact, the General Synod had left itself the power of doing. 
It was the thorough-going opposition which he had felt and shown 
to the admission of the Melanchthon Synod, which made him the 
proper person to offer this resolution. But there were very many 
respects in which the character of the Melanchthon Synod, and of 
its plea for admission, was free from that which made the Franckean 
Synod so totally unfit to be a member of any Lutheran Body. 

As to the implication of change, he had never waited to have his 
real change of views brought as a charge. He was the first to make 



DISCUSSION. 143 

that change known by frank acknowledgment. There is no peril 
greater to a man's love of truth than a false pride of mechanical 
consistency. But his seeming inconsistencies were the long growth 
of ripening consistency. They were not the result of want of a 
fixed principle — the shifting from principle to principle — but the 
outgrowth of one great set of principles, maturing and bringing into 
more perfect harmony the conviction and the act — such as (to com- 
pare the very little with the very great) Luther himself passed 
through. From the hour that by God's grace, through many a sore 
struggle and conflict, he had begun to approach the firm ground, up 
to the present, he had moved in one line. His present convictions 
were connected by unbroken succession with those earliest ones. The 
law of growth is the law of life. The inconsistencies of the earnest 
seeker of truth are like the inconsistencies of the oak with its acorn. 
There are changes, but it is the one life which has conditioned them 
all. 

Dr. Conrad had spoken of the testimony as to alleged errors in 
the Augsburg Confession — the Testimony adopted by the General 
Synod at York — as identical with the one which had been prepared 
by Dr. Krauth, and adopted in the Pittsburgh Synod. But not only 
did the history of the two documents involve a difference in their 
meaning, where they coincided in words, but the language itself was 
in some respects materially changed. The two documents were 
related somewhat as the Invariata and the Variata, but with the 
changes made by other hands, against the will of the author. He 
disavowed, therefore, the Testimony of the General Synod as prop- 
erly his. 

Dr. Conrad's acknowledgment of the great mistake made in disturb- 
ing the original disposition of the Franckean Synod case, was worthy 
of his candor, and could not fail to do good. 



144 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

REMARKS OF REV. D. P. ROSENMILLER. {General Synod.) 

For many years in the Constitution of the Synod of Pennsylvania, 
only the Augsburg Confession was mentioned. It has, in fact, been 
only about twelve years since it was altered, and the other symbol- 
ical books adopted in such a shape that the Augsburg Confession 
dare not speak in any other sense than they speak. In the Liturgy 
adopted by the Synod in early days, the word Lutheran did not occur 
in the services for Ordination, Adult Baptism and Confirmation. 
These first documents were drawn up by the patriarch ot our Church, 
and he evidently had the impression that the German Reformed and 
Lutheran would merge into one Evangelical Church. I have exam- 
ined the Church Constitutions, drawn up by him, in which he gives 
the right to ministers, during the week, by day or night, to hold 
meetings for edification and prayer. 

In this connection I would endeavor to throw some light on a 
document which had some connection with the unfortunate separa- 
tion which took place at Fort Wayne. After the delegates of the 
Pennsylvania Synod, two years previously at York, Pa., had pro- 
tested against the reception of the Franckean Synod, and reported 
to their own Synod, a committee of seven was appointed to report on 
their action. The report of that committee was, that the action of 
the delegates should be approved and sustained. But the chairman 
[Rev. Rosenmiller. — Ed.] explained before the Synod that this report 
did not decide that the action of the delegates was correct. But, as 
they acted according to their honest convictions, although their 
judgment may have been wrong, yet their action should be approved 
and sustained. And this approval was not considered as a separa- 
tion from the General Synod, on the part of the Synod of Pennsyl- 
vania. 

The fifth paper was then read : 



EDUCATION IN THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN THE 
UNITED STATES. 

BY REV. M. VALENTINE, D. D., PRESIDENT OF PENNSYLVANIA 
COLLEGE, GETTYSBURG, PA. 

IN calling attention to Education in the Lutheran Church in the 
United States, I am permitted to feel that the subject is one of 
intrinsic importance and wide bearings. It does not, indeed, ex- 
press anything belonging to the Church's divine foundation, but it 
concerns her great work. Without the importance that attaches to 
discussions settling the dogmas of the faith, it must, however, carry 
the interest that ever belongs to the chief means by which the mis- 
sion of Christianity and the work of the Church are to be accom- 
plished. The relation of means, it must be remembered, gives even 
to doctrine its high importance. Christianity, even as a whole, in 
all its grand truths and divine powers, is not for itself, but a means 
looking to the salvation of men and the redemption of the earth. 
Education looks to the same end for which God has given the sacred 
doctrines. It expresses one of the modes through which the power 
of salvation goes into effect and pushes on toward its goal. How 
directly, as if by normal action, this power moves to the accom- 
plishment of its mission through the agency of education, is appar- 
ent from the rise of Christian schools among the first manifestations 
of the Church's life and activity. As if the earliest preaching of 
the gospel was the marshaling of the fit agencies for the grand work 
of conquest and progress, these schools quickly sprang up and stood 
in the front lines of the holy service. We see them at Alexandria, 
Antioch, Edessa, Nisibis, and elsewhere. They held forth the word 
of life, uplifted high the standard of the cross, and became con- 
spicuous summits of the Church's power and defence in those early 
centuries. 

There can be no doubt that the life of the Church of Christ has 
been meant to enter into and ally with its own blessed ends all 
normal human powers and movements. Christianity is not a thing 

(M5) 



I46 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

to be, or capable of being, held as a thing by itself, apart from the 
offices and activities of life. It comes as a force to enter every other 
force that legitimately belongs to the constitution of the world, and 
to sanctify and claim all for God and righteousness. It may not 
usually, indeed, undertake the functions of other constitutions, but 
it is to permeate all with its supernatural truth and life, and make 
each department, in its own sphere, bear its proper part in the ag- 
gregate redemption of the earth. Education, however, is a func- 
tion that falls so immediately in the line of the Church's work, 
expresses so directly what is part of her essential office, that it may 
not only be pervaded by her sanctifying influence, like, for instance, 
the separate civil power, but be possessed and used as her rightful 
agency. The Church is instrumentally the light of the world. Her 
great office is to teach — to teach all nations. She holds the highest 
knowledge. This highest knowledge includes and appropriates all 
the rest, and so Christianity normally flows through learning into 
its best efficiency and appropriate victories. 

The Church can never admit that Christianity and science are an- 
tagonisms. She knows how utterly false is the impression, sometimes 
sought to be made, that these are in irreconcilable conflict, and 
religion is per se unscientific and science must be irreligious. She 
understands well that they are the readings of God's two great reve- 
lations, and if both are read correctly all the various colored facts 
blend and shine in the pure white light of God's full truth. With- 
out doubt Creation is an expression of God's thought, as Redemp- 
tion is of His love ; and there can be conflict only by wresting the 
Bible or Nature and putting false speech into its lips. And as Re- 
demption, foreseen and provided for before all worlds, expresses the 
final cause, the ultimate end of all the frame-work and movement of 
the world, Nature stands necessarily as a subordinate factor in this 
aggregate movement, and can be rightly understood only in the 
light of the great fact of Redemption. This world's structure and 
history yield to us their true meanings only when viewed in the in- 
terpretative illumination of the cross of Christ and the eschatology 
of the New Testament. The Church, therefore, holds the true key 
to the solution of Nature. Christianity has thus the highest com- 
mission to lead the way through the fields of science. A sublime 
ordination to the work is given in the qualification to do it. To 
atheistic evolutionism, which denies all design, adaptation, and end 



DR. VALENTINES ESSAY. 1 47 

in Nature, or to infidelity, which fails to see that end in the new- 
earth of redemption, Nature is of course an insoluble mystery, and 
science fragmentary, disjointed, incoherent. The Church is the 
best teacher of the truth in these broad domains of culture. The 
children of light, with the torch of God's truth flashing every way 
and lighting up the world, are to lead men, especially the young, 
into the divine thoughts that lie fixed, like compactly written hiero- 
glyphics, in all the phenomena of the earth. Thus will come the 
right correlation between science and religion— -revelation assisting 
and guiding reason to the highest and best conception of nature, 
and then, in turn, receiving the light of all scientific discovery 
thrown back on it, for still profounder and more perfect understand- 
ing of its own meaning. Science then — the term being used in the 
broadest sense, for all known truth in the higher ranges of learning 
— is a true handmaid of religion and falls rightly into the service of 
the Church of redemption. As among the mightiest agencies that 
bear on human welfare, mold civilizations and guide enterprise 
and progress, this is ever to be held by the Church, as pre-eminently 
her own, to be pervaded by her own light and power for conduct- 
ing the world's movement to the consummation to which Providence 
is holding the helm. 

In coming to these shores the Church seized a point of grandest 
power and success, in undertaking to give the country its higher aca- 
demic and collegiate education. In her various branches, she began 
the planting of schools and colleges, that the education of the young 
for all the higher spheres of life and influence might be conducted 
under Christian auspices. So our land has been made a land of Chris- 
tian education. Of the nine colleges established before the revolu- 
tion, eight were begun under Church auspices. Of the three hundred 
and forty-two colleges now reported in our national statistics of edu- 
cation, two hundred and eight-six are in such general Christian rela- 
tion. 1 The good thus accomplished, in Christianizing all the subordi- 
nate ranges of education, in shaping leading and regulative thought 
for the whole land, in elevating our common morality and securing a 
generally favorable attitude toward the Gospel, is simply incalculable. 
What the condition of our land or the state of the Church would be 
without this, or with the order reversed, imagination may only 
faintly picture. If the higher education had been left by the Church 

!Art. Colleges, Kiddle and Schem's Cyclopedia of Education. 



I4§ FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

to merely secular control, with purely secular principles and secular 
ends — if skepticism and unbelief had been left in possession of the 
philosophy, science and culture of the schools, making, as they are 
wont, these great powers seem to contradict Christianity and dis- 
credit the verities of faith — if such godless higher education had then 
unchristianized our common-school education, as it would have done, 
for the millions of the masses — what floods of irreligion and sin 
would be sweeping over the land, endangering every holy thing in 
which we to-day rejoice ! 

Education in the Lutheran Church in the United States must be 
viewed as on the background of these general principles and facts 
It is to be looked upon, at least so far as college education is con- 
cerned, as the part that belongs to us in this great work. What that 
part should be, and how it may be best accomplished, are the ques- 
tions that concern us in this discussion. 

I. The proper position and range of work for our Church in edu- 
cation should be held, it seems to me, as imperatively fixed for us, 
by a number of considerations. 

First. The fact that the Lutheran Church arose in living connec- 
tion with the agencies of higher learning. The restoration of Bib- 
lical Christianity took place among the ffuits of study and the 
power of universities God made Luther climb up through all 
ranges to the summits of learning, before putting into his hand and 
deep in his soul, the commission to reform the Church. He seated 
him in a university chair. He gave him co-laborers in similar posi- 
tion. Providence wheeled these institutions into front line. From 
the lecture-desks of Wittenberg the Church of the Reformat ion did 
much of the grandest work of that grand century. She took organic 
form with this instrument of power in her hands. 

Secondly. The Lutheran Church has always been an educating 
Church, standing, with its great institutions and learned men, in the 
very first rank of Christian scholarship and culture. Through all 
her history she has been distinguished for her renowned universities 
and her erudite scholars She has been the patron of learning, 
using its power for the defense and victory of the Gospel. 

She owes it, thus, to her historical characteristics to take no inferior 
or unworthy relation to the higher education in this country. At 
present, we speak only of academic or collegiate education. And 
we assert that, with no denomination of Christians in our land 



DR, VALENTINES ESSAY. 1 49 

would indifference to education or an inferior standard in it be in 
greater degree a contradiction and denial of itself than with the 
Lutheran Church. We feel, too, that we have a clear warrant to 
impose on ourselves the obligation of a full share in Christianizing 
the higher culture of the country, in the claim we make for our 
Church, that she is in an eminent degree the Church of the pure 
doctrine of the Gospel. If we believe that her confessional position 
and consequent Church life represent the best and truest onflow of 
genuine Christianity, we must believe that we have a commission, 
with a clear divine signature, to bring to the greatest degree possible 
the power of this education under the shaping influence of our 
Church. 

It is not to be forgotten that there is, at the present time, the pres- 
sure of an increased obligation on all the Christian Churches of our 
land, to strengthen their educational work. As a result, on the one 
hand, of the attitude of the Roman Catholic Church toward common 
schools ; and on the other, of the efforts of skepticism and unbelief, 
a strong tendency has set in toward a secularization of the whole 
educational system of our land. The idea of State universities, 
wholly dissevered from ecclesiastical influence, is strongly urged by 
many educators, backed by a large part of both the secular and 
rationalistic press; and the air is full of petty flings at what are 
called denominational or sectarian colleges. There is a constant 
clamor, too, on the part of every faction of anti-Christian scientism, 
for a separation of scientific inquiry from an alleged hindering influ- 
ence on free inquiry in these colleges. It is one of the great, far- 
reaching questions of our day, whether the Church is, in the interest 
of true science and of righteousness, to retain control of the higher 
education which it has given to our land. If the State is, through 
secular universities, to have charge of this education, fostered by 
taxation — a taxation urged by some even upon the property devoted 
to the work by the benevolence of the Churches — then we will have 
the principle pressed, as it is in relation to the common schools, that 
State impartiality as to religions must exclude the Bible and Chris- 
tianity from being recognized as proper forces in this education. Of 
course, the classics of the old paganisms would remain in the cur- 
riculum. Vedic literature would cover the religions of the East. But 
the Text-Book of Christianity would come under ban of this fine 
secularism, which the Christian people of this land would be called 



15° FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

on to support through their taxes. So the higher education would 
be un-Christianized in this Gospel-created land. As the final struggle 
with this anti-Christian and anti-Church tendency comes on, it is 
needful that the Church not only hold that fast which she has, that no 
man take her crown, but strengthen her work, that her institutions 
shall be in the future, as they have been in the past, the most com - 
manding, the ruling centre of learning in the land. And the Lu- 
theran Church, if she wishes to be true to her historic character, or 
to her claim of representing the best type of revived or Protestant 
Christianity, cannot be content simply to let this work be done by 
others, or to take anything short of the fullest share that the Head 
of the Church has made possible to her. 

Thirdly. The proper training of young men for our minis- 
try — such a culture as will prepare them for their true position and 
efficiency — requires a high standard for our educational work. It 
would be an insult to any intelligent body of men to raise before 
them, at this date, the question of an educated ministry. It needs 
no word. But the question may well be raised whether our Church 
appreciates what grade of institutions she should furnish to supply 
the education now needed. The colleges and theological schools 
that can rightly serve the Church's true strength and victory are 
such as shall be able to set forth the young ministry abreast with 
the most advanced results in science, philosophy and theological 
inquiry. This is necessary to prevent them from becoming en- 
tangled in the misleading plausibilities and errors of the times, and 
to fit them to maintain the supremacy of God's truth in its incessant 
conflicts. Even aside from this ministerial education, -our Church's 
prosperity is dependent, more than most persons think, on an ele- 
vated standard of collegiate education. Other things being equal, 
it is almost self-evident, the Church that educates the most and 
best and controls the best institutions will outrank others, and do 
most for the cause of Christ. 

If these principles be true, it is easy to see what position our 
Church should occupy on the subject we are considering. What, 
now, are some of the chief facts that mark the educational work in 
our Church, and some of the features open to criticism, and needing 
revision ? 

Our Church was slow in beginning this work. Were we to count 
from the Swedish Lutheran settlement on the Delaware in 1637, a 



DR. VALENTINES ESSAY. 1 5 I 

century and a half of her history in this country elapsed before any 
successful movement to take part in the higher education was made. 
But though there had been scattering immigration of Lutherans 
from that date onward, our Church can hardly be regarded as 
having been organized here before the coming of the Germans, at 
different dates from 1 710 to 1742. We may justly count a half cen- 
tury of our Church's history here as passed when Franklin Col- 
lege, at Lancaster, the institution to which I refer, was founded 
in 1787. And this institution was only one-third part under Lu- 
theran auspices, and failed to be permanent. The prevalence of 
the German language in our Church was in the w T ay of any early suc- 
cess in establishing a college that should rise to commanding posi- 
tion. German institutions could have only a limited prosperity; 
and any other our Church was not prepared to found, until the 
Lutheran population became largely Anglicized. And when Penn- 
sylvania College, our oldest college, was organized in 1832, it lacked 
only a few years of being two centuries after colleges under other 
auspices had begun in their work and laid the foundations of a wide 
prosperity. As Hartwick Seminary, established in 18 15, though 
highly useful, belongs to the category of academic and theological 
institutes, our college education, apart from our share in the insti- 
tution above named, has a history of only forty- five years. During 
this period the progress has been wonderfully rapid, testifying that 
whatever may be the wisdom that guides the work, it is urged for- 
ward by worthy and earnest interest. The latest statistics give us, 
besides twenty-two academic institutes, a list of eighteen colleges or 
institutions claiming to be such, under the auspices of our Church, 
located within a compass reaching from New York around by the 
Carolinas, Texas, Iowa and Wisconsin, representing four different 
languages, and as many types of Lutheranism. In these there are, 
as nearly as can be ascertained, 2,036 students under 127 professors. 
Nine of the colleges may be counted as English, with 72 professors 
and 988 students. Five are German, with 34 professors and about 
687 students. Two are Swedish with 13 professors and 171 students. 
Two are Norwegian, with about 200 pupils under 8 professors. 
These facts, its seems to me, cannot but justify several criticisms : 
The first is that there has been a very unwise multiplication of 
institutions of this class. To whatever causes it may have been due, 
whether to the apparent necessities of language, the territorial con- 



152 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

venience of location, the divisive action of theological partisanship, 
or the obstinate leading of ambitious individualism, the result is ap- 
parent, that the power of our Church in this branch of work, has 
been terribly sacrificed in this multitudinous planting of colleges. 
In this respect the college work in general, under all the Christian 
denominations, and other bodies that have established them, has 
been misguided and greatly damaged. Weakness rather than 
strength has come to it in this way. If it be claimed that this mul- 
tiplication, by planting colleges in close proximity in every section, 
bringing educational facilities to the doors of the people everywhere, 
draws out and educates more of the young than could otherwise be 
reached, it is evident, however, that the widening of the range has 
been purchased at the expense of its proper elevation. In its de- 
pression of the average grade the aggregate loss has been greater 
than the gain by numbers on the lower level. This principle more 
than holds as to the work in our own Church. The division of the 
pecuniary resources, and of the patronage, among so many institu- 
tions, prevents any of them from rising unto their true efficiency, 
prominence, and service to the Church. I assume that all the 
means, contributed from local, partisan, or personal considerations, 
should have been given under a wiser and better adjusted system. 
The nine hundred and eighty-eight students reported as in the nine 
English colleges could surely all be instructed in four. If the endow- 
ment and patronage that now only keep these nine in straitened and 
hampered work, with professors loaded down with excessive labors 
and little pay, and some of the institutions almost in articulo mortis, 
were accumulated in four, the educational products would unquestion- 
ably be above the present grade of many of them, and our college 
work would stand out in more attractive prominence than now. Our 
institutions could be rightly built up, and developed into commanding 
position for the honor and power of our Church. It seems to me 
to require a microscopic eye to see, for instance, the wisdom of try- 
ing to carry on three colleges under our Church in three adjoining 
States of the South. Were the efforts thrown into one, it could be 
lifted into triumphant success and broad usefulness. This would 
be far better than the present divided enterprise, in which the 
struggle of some for existence is hindering the true efficiency of all. 
In our Middle States, neither the strength of the Church nor the 
compass of territory calls for more than the first one of our colleges. 



DR. VALENTINES ESSAY. 1 53 

Two English colleges, at most, are sufficient to represent our Church 
and do its work in the West— one in the nearer and the other in the 
remoter West. Plainly it would be gain both as to vigor of educa- 
tional work and the harmony of the Church, if we had but a single 
Swedish college combining the funds and patronage of the present 
two. The same is evidently true as to the Norwegian education. 
Is there any just reason, indeed, why Swedish and Norwegian might 
not be united in the same institution, or better still, form depart- 
ments in one of the English institutions ? As to the German col- 
leges, four of them being in the West, it is hard to believe that the 
division of the efforts is not depriving the work of its true ease and 
efficient strength. 

The correctness of this opinion is not disproved by the admitted 
fact, that this rapid multiplication of our colleges has been inevita- 
ble from the divided condition of the Church. It does not better 
the matter that this weakness comes from another weakness, that 
this crippling of our work arises from our bad antagonisms, that the 
evil is simply the symptom of a deeper evil. It does not make this 
system wise, that it is the fruit and revelation of the folly that 
wastes our Church's life in alienations and strifes. It is no recom- 
mendation of it, that it has been shaped by one of the worst facts 
that mar the beauty and cut the sinews of our Lutheran strength. 

All the real advantage, by drawing out the young through numer- 
ous colleges easily accessible, supposed by some to justify this mul- 
tiplication, can be better attained through high-grade, efficient 
academies in every community. These can be made almost as nu- 
merous as our pastoral charges, and can furnish, along with a prep- 
aration for college, the early inspiration to the advanced course. 
It is just this system of numerous local schools, that can best quicken 
our churches into more general education, and send the proper 
numbers on to fill our college halls and give our higher education 
its true encouragement and success. 

But a second thing — the facts furnished by our statistics of col- 
leges, suggest that there is prevalent among us, as a background of 
much of the evil I am criticising, a mistaken notion as to the true 
sphere and relations of the college. A careful examination of the 
list of eighteen cannot fail to reveal the fact that many of them 
stand for types of theological thought, or have been made to accept 
the rivalship of a neighboring new-born college because of being 



154 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

unwilling to be contracted into some such narrowness. It is plain 
that colleges have been looked on much in the light of simple in- 
struments for success in theological warfare. They have been 
sought chiefly as outposts to some special "school of prophets." 
Now, if I have rightly conceived the function and relation of the 
college, as the college under auspices of the Lutheran Church should 
stand in the great American system of Christian higher education, 
it is to occupy a much wider and more catholic position. The col- 
lege is not simply a small Church-school. It is not a theological 
seminary. It is not simply a feeder to any one, nor to all. It is for 
that broader work which shall give the higher education, in its best 
and fullest wealth of science, philosophy, and literature, under 
Christian auspices, for all the callings of life. The college is, in- 
deed, to educate for the theological seminary. It is a feature of 
perhaps more worth than any other, that it trains the young of the 
Church for the great service into which they pass through our theo- 
logical schools. And just because it is needed for this great service, 
as well as for other, the college must be conceded a higher and 
wider office. The young for the ministry in our day should enter 
the theological course with a discipline and culture in the broad 
range of scientific and philosophical thought, such as can be given 
only in institutions with a curriculum arranged after this full concep- 
tion of collegiate education. It is true the pulpit is not to preach 
science or philosophy. Its power to save men is not even through 
the philosophy of the gospel — but the gospel itself. But the pulpit, 
in this age of skeptical scientism and misleading speculation, will 
lose its proper hold on public confidence, if it is without masterful 
knowledge in these pretentious departments of inquiry. It must 
never be said that the ministry is behind the age on the broad 
ground of general and thorough education. The Church's col- 
leges, to give this education, dare not be of inferior grade, or en- 
close their students' course within a range that stretches over only 
the ecclesiastical segment of the horizon of knowledge. The train- 
ing must be broad and efficient. Upon the foundation of such an 
education, a theological course can build up, in the Church's ever- 
lasting truth, true sons of Issachar, with understanding of the times 
and knowledge of what Israel ought to do. 

If it is thus indeed, as it seems to be, a mistake to hold our col- 
leges to serve simply as porches to particular schools of prophets ; 



DR. VALENTINES ESSAY. 1 55 

if the true idea into which they should be molded is that of seats 
of highest Christian culture, affording the proper broad and 
thorough preparation for the various professional courses, for public 
life or business, the question is legitimately raised : What degree 
of organic connection and control ought the Church to hold in 
and over the colleges she builds up? How, without making them 
sectarian, or reducing them to the littleness of party schools, can they 
be made secure to the service and control of the Church, and safe 
from liability of perversion to secularism or infidelity ? The case of 
Harvard University, passing from control of the communion that 
dedicated it " Chris to et EcclesicB" to a management which has 
used it largely to discredit the faith it was built to promote, is 
known to all. Dickinson College, in this State, has passed from un- 
der Presbyterian auspices to Methodist Episcopal control. Meant 
for this Christian service under our Church, the surest possible safe- 
guards ought to be employed for the permanence of our colleges in 
this status. Important as it is to avoid confounding the office of 
the college with that of the theological seminary, and to maintain 
its proper Christian, or at least denominational catholicity, it is 
also of the highest moment to have it so guarded, that it cannot 
swing loose to any unchurchly perversion, or be wrested from the 
control of the Christian communion that founded it. No settled 
principle on this point has been adopted among us, and the Church's 
practice has been irregular and conflicting. The relation between 
the college and Church is varied through all grades of control, from 
the extremes of practical sy nodical ownership and management to a 
separateness in which there is no organic Church-relation whatever. 
If in some cases the partisan ecclesiastical grip has been so tight as 
to disallow the free life and growth essential for the right develop- 
ment of a Christian college, in its true ideal of wide and compre- 
hensive education, and has illustrated, in the sphere of education, 
the wisdom of a method that is employed in forming Chinese feet, 
some have so free a relation as, perhaps, to make additional guar- 
antees for the Church's permanent and best control of them desir- 
able. The relation which the Church should claim for itself, in 
order to assert, without transcending, the proper degree of control 
in its colleges and hold sufficient guarantees for the future, is a sub- 
ject that needs careful revision and settlement among us. 

It is an interesting fact, and strikingly illustrative of the connec- 



I56 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

tion between educational work and Church prosperity, that this 
period of the rapid enlargement of this work has been the period 
of our Church's most rapid development and progress. Since 1845, 
when the educational work through Hartwick Seminary, the Theo- 
logical Seminary and the College at Gettysburg, and other institu- 
tions, was beginning to produce its fuller results in the increase of 
the ministry and the quickening of the educational impulse which 
afterward founded so many other colleges and seminaries, the 
growth of the Church has been greatly accelerated, advancing from 
843 to 5,905 congregations, and from 90,629 communicant mem- 
bers to the present 605,340. It may, indeed, be justly claimed that 
the enlargement of our educational enterprise is, in great degree, 
the effect of our Church's growth; but probably, in larger measure, 
it has been a cause and agency for that growth. As education has 
been fostered — and it is a gratifying fact to be recorded, that some 
of our colleges, despite the unwise multiplication of them, have 
done a noble work and risen to honorable distinction among the 
best institutions of their States — this education has given preparation 
to the ministry, without which, so enlarged in numbers, this pro- 
gress of our Church would have been impossible. At any rate, it is 
a fact to be remembered that the two things go together, and that 
the period of our Church -growth has been joined with the period 
of our educational activity. 

II. In theological education we reach a department of our 'educa- 
tional work which is determined by different aims, and must be 
judged of by different standards. As a rule, I conceive, this be- 
gins properly only after the collegiate course, or its equivalent, has 
laid the proper cultural basis for it. The deviations from this rule 
ought to be more strictly exceptional than they have been among 
us, for the sake of both the theological course itself and the student 
and the Church. This brings up at once a fact that calls for a new 
departure. Whatever reasons may, in the past, have justified a large 
application of the principle of exceptions to the rule in question, 
the character of the times into which we have come, require, and 
the resources of the Church now admit, a more stringent enforce- 
ment of the higher standard for entrance into our theological 
schools. Honorable as has been the general culture of our minis- 
try, surely comparing favorably with that of the ministry of Churches 
around us, and blessed with divine power as have been the labors 



DR. VALENTINES ESSAY. 1 57 

of many who have entered the service with only an inferior educa- 
tion, we have plainly reached a point at which we may, and should, 
make an advance movement and approach nearer to the high stand- 
ard which, I think, has always been the prospective ideal of the 
Church. 2 

The true aim of theological education is more peculiar than is 
generally thought. It is not only to be contrasted with collegiate 
training, furnishing general intellectual culture under Christian 
auspices, by being a professional course for the acquisition of some 
full-orbed system of divinity ; but it means, largely, the deep cul- 
tivation of piety, and the kindling of soul into the earnestness of a 
full consecration to the appointed work. The ministry is not sim- 
ply a profession — rather, is not a profession, or craft, at all — but a 
great divine service. A.nd so, our theological schools are not like 
schools of law or medicine, which give the knowledge of some pro- 
fessional art or activity as a means of support or honorable distinc- 
tion; but they are meant, while holding the student above such 
simply professional conception of the office to which he is looking, 
to fill his mind, through the Holy Spirit's blessing on the instruc- 
tion, with the living truth of the gospel and an inspiration to self- 
sacrificing usefulness. It is a place where, pre-eminently, he is to 
be endued with power from on high, before going forth to the holy 
work. He is to be kindled into glowing fervor by the truth he re- 
ceives there in its theological completeness, as the necessary prepa- 
ration for kindling the souls of others with the truth and power of 
salvation. 

Our theological institutions have been founded, I believe, in this 
true conception of their work. The limit of time for this paper for- 
bids any attempt to trace, historically, the earlier methods of train- 
ing our pastors, and the facts connected with the establishment of 
our theological seminaries. The facts are full of interest, but we 
can note them only as they apppear in the results now reached. 

2 At the first meeting of the General Synod, 1821, five years before the 
establishment of the Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, it was resolved : 
" That it be recommended to the several Synods, to admit, for the present, 
no young man to the study of theology, before he has obtained a diploma, or 
some similar testimonial, from a public institution, wherein the usual branches 
of science are taught; or before he has been examined in such branches, and 
found sufficiently qualified, by a committee appointed for the purpose." 



158 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

The earliest founded of our theological schools was Hartwick Sem- 
inary, for which provision was made by the will of Rev. John C. 
Hartwig in 1 796, but which went into operation only in 1815. In 
1826 the Theological Seminary of the General Synod was established 
at Gettysburg. Since that time, enterprise in this direction has 
been exceedingly active; and leaving out of count several abort- 
ive and dead efforts, fifteen others have been added to the list. In 
these seventeen seminaries or theological departments, there are, as 
nearly as the statistics show, forty-one professors, and four hundred 
and ninety-seven students. Five of them, with eleven professors 
and eighty-two students, are connected with the General Synod 
North ; two with three professors and thirteen students with the 
General Synod South. Two, with eight professors and sixty-two 
students, are connected with the General Council 3 ; and four in which 
eleven professors teach one hundred and ninety-five students, with 
the Synodical Conference. The rest are connected with independ- 
ent Synods. 

Abundant testimony to the great value and efficiency of these insti- 
tutions is furnished in the large number of well instructed and earnest 
ministers they are annually giving to the work of the Church. The 
enlarged and comprehensive curriculum of three years, adopted by 
a number of them, and insisted on with increased rigor, is auspicious 
for still augmented efficiency of service. The division of labor also, 
through an increase of our theological faculties, is adding strength 
to these seminaries. However, it seems to me plain here, as with 
our colleges, that there has been an unwise multiplication of these 
institutions. Blessed as has been the service rendered to the Church 
by our theological education, greater and better things had been 
and still are possible to us under a policy less divisive of effort and 
more concentrative of our resources. It is not my business here to 
point out particular cases in which this divisive and weakening ac- 
tion has taken place, or to arraign the propriety of the existence and 
work of any special institution. I wish to be distinctly understood 
as not undertaking to do this. But it is permitted me to deal with 
the general principle or policy pursued, and this policy, whatever 

3 Wartburg Seminary, at Mendota, 111., in connection with the Synod of 
Iowa, and the Practical Theological Seminary at Marshal, Wis., under the 
Norwegian-Danish Augustana Synod, are not included here, because these 
Synods are not in full connection with the General Council. 



DR. VALENTINES ESSAY. 1 59 

may have been the causes that led to it, may, it seems to me, be 
justly arraigned as misguided, on several grounds. 

It is violative, for instance, of a wise and true principle of econ- 
omy, both as to men and means. This multiplication of seminaries 
greatly increases the amount of endowment, or direct contributions, 
necessary to meet their expenses and support the professors — if in- 
deed they are supported. It consumes the time and energies of 
more men in professorial labor than would be called for under a 
system of wise combination of work. It is an unwise demand on 
the resources of the Church. Further, it prevents the best breadth 
and thoroughness of our theological education, in necessarily keep- 
ing the teaching force in each institution .smaller, and their labor 
larger, than they should be. But the greatest evil of all appears in 
the doctrinal disharmony and misunderstandings which they keep up 
and intensify in the Church. The seventeen schools we have repre- 
sent and foster at least half a dozen types of what is claimed to be 
Lutheran Theology ; and varieties of these are shaded out, some 
places, into minuter diversities. Even within the schools connected 
with the same general Lutheran organization, divergences occur. 
The carrying on of our theological education in so many institutions 
which are led, by their rivalries and jealousies, to magnify their typi- 
cal differences and overlook the points of their agreement, empha- 
sizing all the divisive peculiarities on which partisanship feeds and 
grows, training, it may be, and inspiring skilled polemics rather 
than earnest servants of Christ and His truth, and sending them 
forth prepared to misconceive and misinterpret, but not to trust 
and love one another — this is something, it seems to me, that 
requires us to put a clear seal of condemnation upon this policy. 
It may be that, with the various nationalities in our Church, and 
otherwise divided as we have unfortunately been — though not more 
than some other denominations — the course pursued was unavoid- 
able. If so, it becomes a revelation of a sadly abnormal condition 
of our Church life and consciousness, and only shows what a severely 
condemnatory judgment we should put on the distractions and divi- 
sions, into which a noble love of the truth has led us, through un- 
wise methods of defending it. It may be that the error is now 
incapable of correction. The work of the past cannot, perhaps, be 
undone. But a wise economy, and the harmony and strength of the 
Church, require that it be pursued no further. It may be, that the 



l6o FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

law of the survival of the fittest, will have to bring the only possible 
solution of the difficulties created by what has been already done • 
but, possibly, wise counsels and Christian love may yet bring into 
unity some of our divided theological educational work. Much 
better would it be if we could combine this work into, at most, one- 
half the number of our present centres of theological training, with 
the enlarged funds, faculties, and libraries, such united effort would 
make possible. 

I am reluctantly compelled to omit any discussion of the education 
of the daughters of the Church, and of the close connection of this 
education with the Church's best growth and prosperity. Our his- 
tory is not without honorable records of worthy, earnest and self- 
sacrificing effort in this direction. We have had, and have now, 
men and institutions laboring in this way, with honor and advant- 
age to the Church, if not with pecuniary success to themselves; the 
fruits of whose services it would be a grateful task to recall. It is 
enough to point to such schools as Lutherville Seminary, Hagers- 
town Seminary, Staunton Female Seminary, Marion Female Col- 
lege, etc. The results of effort in this direction, though not all that 
have been desired, are abundantly worth all the sacrifice made. 
It needs only be added, that thorough culture in the daughters, 
wives and mothers of a Christian communion, touches so directly 
and with such decisive power upon its whole social standing, intel- 
ligent religious activity, efficient service, and general influence, that 
it justly claims increased attention and more earnest encouragement 
among us. 

REMARKS OF REV. C. A. STORK, D. D. {General Synod.) 
I am glad the paper just read touched on one point in the interest 
of the Higher Education, viz. : The need of more and more effi- 
cient academic or preparatory schools scattered broadcast through- 
out the land. But I wish to dwell on that point more fully. It 
ought to be brought out. 

It is obvious I think to all who are interested in the question of 
the Higher Education, and who have studied the subject at all, that 
the drift of the age is away from scholarship. Our statistical tables 
show that relatively fewer of our young men pursue a full collegiate 
course than in the beginning of the century. Absolutely, of course, 



DISCUSSION. l6l 

there are more that are college-bred ; but relatively there are fewer. 
The scholar is not as great as he used to be. The influence and 
admiration and power that he commands are not the same. The 
reason for this I think is very obvious; it is to be found in 
the spirit of the age. We know what the age is; what its drift is ; 
it is almost wholly in the direction of material interests. Investiga- 
tion is turned to the searching out of material problems, and the 
activities of the age, its hopes and enthusiasm, are to the furtherance 
of material prosperity. So our young men grow up in an atmos- 
phere, and launch out into a current that are all for material inter- 
ests. The promises of life are not as they once were, in large meas- 
ure for the scholar, the thinker; they are for the active man, the 
speculator, the organizer of capital, the man strong to manage 
trade. All this sets the current of young ambition and aspiration 
away from the university, the quiet life of meditation, and slow 
study. 

What is the corrective for this ? Not, I think, at this time, more 
colleges or better colleges ; not a grander and richer university. 
Those, whatever they may be, are remote from the life of the day; 
they are secluded from the rush and tide that catches the young man 
and whirls him away. What is needed now, it seems to us, is a sys- 
tem of academies which, bringing the allurements of learning, of the 
studious atmosphere, to the homes of the young, shall give them a 
taste for letters, for thought, and direct their attention to the world 
of better and higher things that exists for them. 

And to do this is the work of the Church. She has always been 
the fosterer of the Higher Education. She planted our colleges and 
universities. Now she must see to opening rills that shall feed them. 
The State cannot doit; the State never will do it. Now in the 
Providence of God, it seems as if that office of nurse of letters 
which she once filled, and men have thought she could fill no longer, 
is once more offered her. 

If in all our country towns we could, under the fostering care 



1 62 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

of our Synods and Conferences, establish academies and higher 
schools, we should be doing the greatest work for the interests of 
the Higher Education. 

Let me say, too, that we as a Church have especial need of some 
agency that will bring a higher education to our laity. There is a 
greater gulf in this matter of education, between the body of our 
people and the clergy than exists in most of the great denomina- 
tions. Our ministers are as well educated as those of any conspicu- 
ous Christian body; but with the laity it is otherwise. This makes 
a gap between the pulpit and the pews. Some may like to see that 
difference; it may flatter their pride to feel that they are more 
cultured than any of their flock. I am not one of those. I could 
wish that the people might have knowledge. I rejoice to see men 
and women in my congregation, my peers in culture and knowledge. 
It would be good for us all, and good for the Church's work, if the 
minister felt that there were before him those who knew more about 
many points of a generous culture than he did. 

And to the academy preparing the way to the college and the 
university — to the academy founded throughout our country dis- 
tricts and fostered by the Church — do I think we must look for 
help in this matter. 

The hour of adjournment having arrived, further discussion was 
postponed until the next morning at 9 o'clock. 

Dr. Seiss stated that a press of duties had prevented Rev. Dr. Re- 
pass, of Virginia, both from attending the Diet and from preparing 
his paper. There would, therefore, be a vacancy in the programme 
for to-morrow morning. It was unfortunate that the laity had been 
overlooked in selecting essayists for the Diet. There was, however, 
a layman present, a member of the family of the great Reformer, 
who had prepared a paper on the Linguistic Relations of the Luth- 
eran Church in this country. He moved that the vacant place be 
assigned Dr. Diller Luther, of Reading, Pa. 

Adopted. 



FOURTH SESSION. 



December 2 8th, 9 a. m. 
Prayer by Rev. W. K. Frick, of Philadelphia. The discussion of 
Dr. Valentine's paper was resumed. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. F. REINMUND, D. D. {General Synod.-) 
The Common Schools sustain an important relation to the higher 
education, which can and should be utilized for the prosperity and 
success of colleges. These public schools ought to have the encour- 
agement and influence of the ministry for their proper direction and 
efficiency. They offer excellent opportunities for ministers of the 
Gospel to get into contact with the minds of the young, to turn 
their attention to collegiate education, and to encourage them to 
secure it. His own experience had satisfied him that much could 
be done in this way. The public and high schools have made it 
difficult to sustain efficient academies; and in the present relations 
of education in our country, the most available way, perhaps, of 
promoting the higher Christian education in our Church, is for the 
ministry to use the opportunities open to them to encourage and 
influence education through these schools. 

REMARKS OF REV. A. SPAETH, D. D. {General Council.) 
I would not like to underrate the importance of theological and 
collegiate education in the Lutheran Church of this country, but I 
am convinced that in order to do justice to our duty on the field of 
education, we must begin to lay the foundations deeper in the relig- 
ious instruction of the home circle and the congregational school. 
No other Church possesses a treasure equal to our own "Catechism," 
written for this very purpose, that the head of the family should 
teach it to his household, and that the pastors and teachers should 
use it to instruct the young. The year 1845 nas t* een mentioned as 

(163) 



164 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

marking the beginning of an increased activity and success on the 
field of education within our Church. I have no doubt that this date is 
correctly given. But if I am not very much mistaken, the real cause 
of this remarkable increase since that time, is the fact, that from that 
time on, the German Lutherans in the West, especially our Missouri 
brethren, who have been the chief instrument to save the great West 
for the Lutheran Church, commenced their work. They not only 
preached the Gospel in the pulpit, but gathered the lambs into the 
folds of the parochial schools, the pastor himself serving as the 
teacher in the parish school, if no other suitable man could be found. 
This is the duty we owe to our Church, to the faith of our fathers. 
It is all the more our duty as we stand comparatively isolated be- 
tween Romanism on the one side and the Protestantism of the 
Reformed type on the other side. 

[NOTE FROM DR. VALENTINE.] 
Owing to an unintentional oversight of the Chair, the opportu- 
nity of closing the discussion on this paper was not given to the 
author. It was his purpose to add a few words on several points 
referred to in the discussion. First, that the subject of the earlier 
education of the children, justly held to be so important, had not 
been touched on in the paper, because it formed the topic of another 
paper for the Diet. Secondly, that the Public School was available 
for the purposes of our Church Education only in exceptional cases ; 
and that classical instruction, to fit students for college, was probably 
in excess of what rightly belonged to the Public School system. 

The sixth paper was then read. 



THE INTERESTS OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN 

AMERICA AS AFFECTED BY DIVERSITIES 

OF LANGUAGE. 

BY DILLER LUTHER, M. D., READING, PA. 

I PROPOSE some thoughts and reflections on the subject of the 
interests of the Lutheran Church in America, as affected by 
diversities of Language. It is my intention to content myself with a 
mere outline, believing that such general observations as all will ad- 
mit to be correct, will of themselves be sufficiently suggestive of the 
proper conclusions, without any argument to establish them. 

The Protestant Reformation had its origin on German soil. It 
was in Germany, where the seeds of religious liberty were first 
planted and took root ; it was there, where the rights of conscience 
were boldly and fearlessly advocated and maintained. The struggle 
to recover the pure doctrines of God's Holy Word, for so many 
years hidden under the corruptions of the Roman Hierarchy, was 
commenced and successfully conducted there. They were held and 
defended, in defiance of papal bulls, of arbitrary edicts by the civil 
powers, and amid such persecution and cruelties as have scarcely 
had a parallel in history. No sacrifice was deemed too great, to pro- 
tect them against the opposition and destruction, with which they 
were constantly threatened. Country, home, property and life it- 
self, would be surrendered if occasion demanded. History may be 
searched in vain, from the earliest period down to the present time, 
for an example of a more inflexible adherence to truth and principle, 
than was exhibited in this great contest. 

The struggle to maintain the Protestant doctrines was soon fol- 
lowed by religious wars The massacre of St. Bartholomew took 
place in France in 1572. In 1598 was published the Edict of Nantes, 
granting equal rights to Protestants. In 1685 this Edict was re- 
voked, and Protestants were again persecuted in France. Children 
at the age of seven years, by apostatizing, were declared independ- 
ent of their parents ; military executions were employed to enforce 

(165) 



1 66 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

uniformity of worship ; Protestant marriages were declared illegal, 
and their offspring illegitimate. Hereupon 15,000 persons fled to 
Hamburg and Amsterdam in Holland ; and in the five years follow- 
ing, no less than 1,000,000 fled to Holland, England and America 
— for William Penn, in 1682, had already colonized Pennsylvania. 

The tide of German emigration set rapidly towards our shores. 
Settlements upon the Hudson river in New York were first made, 
but preferring the liberal spirit of the Penn government, the emi- 
grants directed their steps towards the fertile valleys of our Com- 
monwealth. The lands in many sections of the Colony were soon 
occupied. With their practical knowledge as farmers and proverbial 
habits of industry, the soil was made to yield abundant crops. They 
built comfortable homes, enclosed their farms and erected the neces- 
sary farm buildings ; neighborhoods and villages rapidly grew up — 
the mill, the store and mechanics' shops soon followed, and gave 
evidences of prosperity. Then came the school and the church. 
A lot sufficiently large for the church, the school and the parsonage, 
was selected in an eligible location. With the aid and means of all, 
each one ready and willing to contribute to the work, the walls of 
the stately edifice were rapidly reared ; the spire pointing heaven- 
ward, was added to give it grace and dignity; with the altar, organ, 
and pews, all arranged in the approved style of that day, the whole 
in a short time was made ready for occupation. The school and 
parsonage soon followed. Church after church was thus erected in 
the valleys of which the Germans had become inhabitants, some of 
which may be seen to this day. 

At the early period of which we are now speaking, the services of 
the Lutheran Churches were conducted in the German language 
only ; the settlements being entirely German, there was no neces- 
sity for any other. Indeed, in many of the original charters, the ex- 
clusive use of that language was made obligatory, which in many 
instances continues to be literally observed to this day. For a time — 
it may be said for a long time — these churches prospered ; they be- 
came strong in numbers and in influence. The early ministers 
being generally foreigners, received their theological training in the 
schools of Europe, and were pious and learned. A necessary part 
of the general system then in use, was to train the young inside, in- 
stead of outside the Church as now pursued — a departure of modern 
times which is by no means universally admitted to bewise. The 



DR. LUTHER'S ESSAY. 1 67 

parsonage, with a sufficient number of acres surrounding it to pro- 
duce the needed supplies, completed the Church arrangement. 

I now pass to another period in the history of the early Lutheran 
churches in this country. As neighborhoods became more densely 
settled and the population more mixed, the English language be- 
came a barrier to the continued prosperity of the German churches. 
The educational institutions, the business of Legislative bodies, of 
Courts, and of ordinary trade, were conducted in the national lan- 
guage. English churches were established and became prosperous. 
The inclination to follow the popular current on the part of the 
young could not be restrained. The fathers were content with the 
Church as they had established it; they remonstrated and en- 
deavored to resist, but could not prevent a continued outgoing into 
the English Churches. An effective remedy could have been found 
in the introduction of the English language into the Lutheran 
churches, but that was neither countenanced nor sanctioned. The 
consequences which followed are known to all. Failing to provide 
for the young, the churches declined and in very many instances 
with all the membership passed out of existence. 

The policy of our ancestors in this respect, has been variously 
criticised. From one standpoint, it is unsparingly denounced and 
condemned. From another, it is defended and admired. The ten- 
acity Avith which they adhered to the exclusive use of one language, 
is commended by some, as significant of a deep-seated love for the 
Church, for which such sacrifices had been endured. By others, it is 
regarded as nothing more nor less than Teutonic perversity, an ob- 
stinate blindness and unwillingness to conform to new relations, by 
which great interests may be protected and saved, simply because 
the means to be used do not accord with long-cherished prejudices 
and mistaken tastes. 

But the conduct of our fathers, if not altogether wise, was at least 
reasonable and natural. For the Lutheran Church, as then organ- 
ized and conducted, they had suffered much. They had forsaken 
country and home, to enjoy it in a foreign land free from molesta- 
tion from any one. It was a German Church, German in its ori- 
gin, in its traditions and broad liberal spirit. The desire naturally 
would be to transplant it to this country, precisely as it existed at 
the home they had left, not only in language but in all other partic- 
ulars. The Church must be German here, because it was German 



1 68 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

there. For the doctrine of change to conform to new conditions, 
the true German has little respect, especially in matters pertaining 
to the Christian Church. To require him to agree to a change of 
language in the Church, was tantamount to a surrender of all he held 
dear. It was like a transfer not only of title, but of possession, in 
an estate which he considered peculiarly his own. 

That the policy pursued by our ancestors, with reference to the 
question we have been considering, though influenced by the views 
and feelings just presented, was a mistaken one, is obvious from the 
deplorable consequences which followed. It was as wrong in the- 
ory ? as it was injurious in practice .The attempt to confine it to one 
tongue and one nationality, was an insult to its great founders and 
entirely at variance with the broad spirit upon which it was estab- 
lished. The basis upon which it was reared, was sufficiently broad 
and comprehensive for the whole Protestant Church. Such was not 
the spirit of Muhlenberg. He taught in three languages. It was 
not the spirit of Kunze at New York, who wept at seeing the out- 
flow from his own church into those of other denominations. It 
was not the spirit of their co-laborers at other central points, for 
they saw the inevitable consequences which must occur from the 
failure to provide for the young in our own churches. 

When we consider the injury which has been inflicted upon the 
Church by the course pursued, we cannot refrain from congratulat- 
ing ourselves that the conflict on the question of language, has in 
a great measure ceased. It would be an anomaly at the present day, 
for ministers to insist that English-speaking families should learn the 
German language, in order to avoid the necessity of introducing 
English services into the Church. How generally this course was 
pursued, especially in the larger cities and towns, to their great in- 
jury and in some instances to their ruin, is well known. For years 
under the ministers who had charge of our churches, and who were 
capable of speaking in one language only, the policy was one of un- 
yielding opposition to the use of the English language, the sad con- 
sequences of which maybe seen in every city and town in our State. 

The question must now be briefly considered, whether the Church 
is fully relieved of the injury caused by the conflict of languages. 
It is undoubtedly true that the opposition to the use of the English 
language in the Lutheran churches, has in a great measure ceased. 
English Lutheran churches have greatly multiplied and grown 



dr. luther's essay. 169 

strong ; German churches have also greatly increased and prospered. 
But why this continued jealousy and hostility ? Why this never end- 
ing and bitter controversy with which our weekly and monthly pub- 
lications are so filled? Why these numerous divisions, these rival 
institututions and agencies, to carry on the work of the Church ? 
You may cry peace, peace, but there is no peace ; the corroding 
ulcer, though cicatrized, is not healed. It still remains to fret and 
worry. The disease is not cured, but masked • it continues, but in 
a different form. For upwards of one hundred years, has the Church 
in this country bled and suffered from it ; for all that long time, has 
it been agitated, distracted and divided. 

And now I approach a point where I would tread cautiously. Is 
it indeed true that no adequate remedy can be found for the relief 
of the Church from these festering sores ? Are we never to see the 
dawn of that day, when the different branches of the firstborn of the 
Reformation will be at peace with each other ? when they will unite 
and co-operate in the important work committed to them? Are the 
elements, of which the different divisions are composed, so discord- 
ant and incongruous as to render any efforts to harmonize them 
entirely futile? 

It cannot be denied that the results of past efforts in this direc- 
tion do not warrant any very sanguine hopes of success in the 
future. And yet we need not despair. The experience of the past 
merely shows, if it shows anything, that the methods chosen were 
not adapted to secure the desired object. Peace and harmony are 
not to be obtained by Synodical resolutions. Nor are the members 
composing ecclesiastical bodies, to be forever kept separate by a 
parliamentary ruling, though it be influenced by a regard for the 
rights of a party. The trouble is deep seated, and requires for its 
treatment remedies of a radical character —palliatives have been tried 
without effect — nothing short of the knife of the surgeon will remove 
the corroding canker. And what, it will now be asked, is that remedy? 
I answer, it is simple, it is radical, and in a larger measure than can 
possibly be realized from any other, will be effective. It is separation. 
It is based upon the experience of the past, which teaches the lesson 
unmistakably, that the interests of the Lutheran Church in this coun- 
try, cannot be successfully secured on the union principle. It has 
been tried in churches and failed ; in our educational institutions and 
various church agencies and enterprises, it has met with no better 
12 



I^O FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

success • but has always resulted in the withdrawal of one or the 
other party, and the organization of separate establishments. In 
separation, then, to a certain extent and in a definite way, is to be 
found the peace which we seek. Separate churches, separate Synods 
and separate agencies and educational institutions, but one in the 
essential doctrines in the Church, one in the forms of worship and 
one in general aim and purpose. To a large extent this separation 
has already been established, and the only reason why the trouble is 
not entirely eradicated, is that both the German and the English par- 
ties continue to be members of the same organizations. The con- 
flict exists in these bodies themselves, from whence it is transmitted 
to the body of the Church, and if traced to the cause which pro- 
duces it, will be found to arise from the same disturbing element — 
the difference of language and of the views and usages peculiar to 
each. The idea, then, is that the work of the Church should be pur- 
sued separately — not in a spirit of antagonism, but in harmony — the 
German and the English branches each pursuing the same great end, 
and in that sphere of usefulness for which its means best adapt it. 
The opposite course has been repeatedly tried and always failed, 
and from the force of circumstances will fail, in whatever form it 
may be proposed. 

To a certain extent unity is practicable, and great benefits to the 
Church would result from it if established. There may be unity in 
essentials. All can accept the Augsburg Confession as it is given to 
us. It is broad and liberal, and is the corner-stone upon which all 
other Protestant Church creeds were built. We can accept it as 
Presbyterians accept the Westminster Confession of Faith; as the 
Protestant Episcopal Church accepts the Thirty-nine Articles. Not 
a plank need be disturbed, with a view to a more definite platform; 
nor need its liberal spirit be marred by the interpolation of addi- 
tional points or rules — rules which no one can understand or explain, 
and which, seemingly at least, are at variance with its spirit, if not 
with the spirit of Christianity itself. One in doctrine and forms of 
worship, with friendly correspondence, but separate in the respects 
named, — when that comes to pass, then will we have peace and a 
larger unity than any we have yet enjoyed. In separation of such a 
character there is growth and expansion; in an enforced union, or 
one established by the resolutions of Synods, there is restriction, 
conflict, dissension. With such a policy, Lutherans may be kept in 



DISCUSSION. 171 

Lutheran churches, and, instead of building up those of other 
denominations, will build up their own. 

I say, then, in essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty — not the 
liberty which tolerates and excuses compromises of established ssy- 
tems of belief — not the liberty which leaves to individual taste, cor- 
rect, crude, or eccentric, as may happen, the forms of worship to be 
observed. In sacred things let us have uniformity, rather \ one pre- 
scribed form to be observed by all, and in all things charity, — not 
the charity which sanctions erroneous interpretations of fundamental 
truths, and permits irregularity in religious observances — but that 
charity which refuses to denounce and condemn the different phases 
of personal piety as developed in different individuals. 

In behalf, then, of the great body of the laity of the Church, I 
invoke peace. Let us be careful that the chasm which divides us 
does not grow wider and deeper, but, rather, that the day may soon 
come when we can clasp hands across it, and be one in fundamen- 
tals, one in forms, one in aim and purpose. Then will all the 
branches grow and expand. Then will the Lutheran Church in- 
crease in numbers, in power and influence. 

REMARKS OF REV. L. E. ALBERT, D. D. {General Synod.) 

He was compelled to differ with Dr. Luther in the plan proposed 
for solving the problem of language. The German and the Eng- 
lish elements were necessary to each other ; and even although there 
was occasional friction, yet there were advantages in their union 
that more than compensated for the disadvantages and embarrass- 
ments that sometimes gave trouble. He was compelled to testify, 
that of the members whom he received into his congregation from 
other churches, those from the German churches were almost always 
the most faithful. They had been carefully trained in the doctrines 
of the Church, they were ardently attached to it, and were to be 
found in their places long after many from other quarters, who had 
at first promised well, had disappeared. On no account would he 
favor any separation on the basis of language. The closest intimacy 
and best understanding between the representatives of the two lan- 
guages should be cultivated. 



I7 2 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. K. PLITT. {General Council.) 
I have listened with much interest to the essay of Dr. Luther. It 
is unusual to have the pleasure of hearing laymen in productions 
so carefully prepared. But whilst the Doctor has given a graphic 
description of certain evils afflicting our Church, he presents a rather 
startling remedy, and seems to be self -contradictory. Separation 
of the languages in congregations, institutions, etc., is what he pro- 
poses, and yet, at the same time, he would have unity in doctrine, 
uniformity in worship, and oneness of aim and purpose. But if we 
can have the latter, why the former? Diversity in doctrine is the 
chief thing that causes separation. Let us be united in the faith 
— for that is the great point on which a true unity hinges — and we 
will have no need of separation. Other matters will soon right 
themselves — our divisions will soon be healed. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. B. RATH. {General Council.) 

I am sorry that I am unable to agree with the essayist in the main 
point of his paper, seporation, as the remedy for our troubles be- 
tween the German and the English. The evils which he represents 
as growing out of the contact of the two languages, do indeed exist 
to a considerable degree, and no one deplores them more heartily 
than myself. But the remedy he suggests for their removal, appears 
to my mind worse than the evils themselves. He recommends the 
radical remedy of separation — separation of congregations, of 
Synods and of theological institutions, on the basis of language. 
Instead of this measure being a cure of the troubles complained of, 
I fear it would prove itself the mischievous cause of rendering them 
worse. Whatever success as a Church we have had, at least in 
Pennsylvania, is owing largely to the joint use of the two languages 
in our congregations, Synods and Seminaries. The history of the 
English churches in Lancaster, Lebanon, Reading, Easton, Bethle- 
hem and other towns in eastern Pennsylvania, is a standing witness 
to this fact. These congregations nearly all took their origin in 



DISCUSSION. 173 

German congregations that introduced the English language into 
their services, and maintained the same for years side by side with 
the German, until the English elements were sufficiently strong to 
separate from the parent congregations, and to establish themselves 
as entirely English churches. Had, however, the policy of separa- 
tion prevailed, the policy of not allowing both languages to be used 
jointly in the same congregations, some of these prosperous English 
churches to which we have alluded, would have no existence to-day. 
We do not deny that some of our German congregations opposed 
English services in their churches too long, but this fact simply 
shows that they held on to the idea of separation — German sepa- 
rate from English — too long. Where this suicidal measure was 
never adopted, or abandoned very early, there the two languages 
were used conjointly without any unpleasant friction and with good 
results. The true remedy, therefore, it seems to us, is not separa- 
tion, but closer, more harmonious union and co-operation. The 
beauty and excellency of the united employment of the two 
languages, are also illustrated in our Synods and theological 
Seminaries. If you wish to represent to your mind the condi- 
tion of things, as they would naturally be as the result of the 
mistaken policy of radical separation, imagine in this city of Phil- 
adelphia, instead of our one theological seminary with its har- 
monious co-working of both languages, the existence of two sem- 
inaries arrayed against each other on the score of language. Or 
imagine the dividing line of language arbitrarily drawn between 
Synods occupying the same geographical territory, and that a terri- 
tory, on which Providence has brought both languages into the same 
localities, into the same congregations, and even into the same families 
— how, under such circumstances, would it be possible to avoid still 
greater rivalries, oppositions and contentions than those we are now 
troubled with ? German and English brethren should not thus be 
separated, when Providence has indicated that they should both 
dwell in concord in the same house, in the same congregation, in 



174 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

the same Synod. To this union of languages is also applicable the 
Master's injunction: "What, therefore, God hath joined together, 
let not man put asunder." If here and there be prejudice and 
conflict between brethren, simply because one speaks a different 
language from the other, let not such a state of things be en- 
dorsed and encouraged by separation of persons and interests, but 
let it be remedied by dwelling together, and praying that the grace 
of God may take from our hearts such childish antagonisms. For 
verily the alienation or opposition of Christians, on no other ground 
than that of using different languages, is no more respectable before 
men or justifiable before God, than that which bases itself upon the 
cut of a coat, the presence of a button, or the breadth of the brim 
of a hat. 

May the Lord grant us grace to overcome any and all such insig- 
nificant obstacles in the way of harmony and peace. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. KOHLER. {General Council.) 

The brother who has just spoken, is probably not so well informed 
as some others, in regard to the introduction of the English language 
in the churches to which he has referred. There was opposition on 
the part of the Germans. Instead of being helpful to its introduc- 
tion, they generally opposed it. In Reading particularly, was there 
great opposition, and it was only after some members of Trinity 
Church went out and organized an English congregation, that 
steps were taken to have English services in that church. Almost 
everywhere was the introduction of the English language resisted. 
Had the English language been timely used, and our people prop- 
erly provided and cared for, our Church in this land would now 
be larger than any two of the largest denominations together. 

But it is more particularly in regard to that part of the essay 
which refers to uniformity, that I wish to speak. It is here, that 
there is a great want in our Church — even in regard to the German 
and English. I think it would be a great advantage if there were more 



DISCUSSION. 175 

similarity in the services. If the Germans, coming into our English 
churches, noticed the same service as in their own, they would be 
more readily drawn to the English churches. If you go into our 
German churches in this city, and then into many of our English 
churches, you will see little or no similarity. In the German 
churches, the pastor wears a gown, uses a liturgical service, and 
everything wears a churchly appearance ; but in most of our English 
churches it is quite different. I have knowm members of German 
churches to remark this. There should be uniformity, so that when 
our German people come into an English church, they will see 
everything as in their own, and then they will more likely unite 
with it. As it is, they find little difference between most of our 
English churches and those of the denominations. 

There should be uniformity in all our churches, so that our peo- 
ple, English and German, going into a Lutheran church anywhere, 
would at once know that they were in a Lutheran church, and could 
feel at home. Such a uniformity would do much towards drawing 
the different parts of the Church together, and keeping them 
together. 

In the essay of yesterday afternoon, there was reference made to 
the Presbyterian and Episcopal Churches; though there are doc- 
trinal differences among them, they are yet united. But these 
Churches maintained uniformity. In the Episcopal Church, there 
are probably greater doctrinal differences than in ours, yet Episco- 
palians keep together and co-operate with each other. They are 
held together by their order of service, which is the same every- 
where. Go into any of their churches, and there is the same clerical 
dress, the same order of service — the same hymns and prayer-book 
— and so it should be among us. 

I am aware that this is not the main thing, and that doctrine is 
of more importance. But this outward uniformity is also a matter 
of great importance — our laity attach importance to it — and they 
complain because there is such a lack of uniformity. I have con- 
siderable acquaintance with our churches in eastern and central 



I76 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Pennsylvania ; and everywhere, and from persons on both sides of 
the house, I have repeatedly heard complaints about our want of 
uniformity. Whatever the order be, let there be but one, they say. 
And, in my humble judgment, it would do much towards bringing 
all parts of our Church closer together, if we could have the same 
external order — the same order of service, the same hymn-book, the 
same clerical dress, and the same polity ; and let it be our aim to 
bring about such a uniformity. 

President Sadtler (General Council,) remarked that it would un- 
doubtedly give the Diet great pleasure to hear from the representa- 
tives of the German churches, Drs. Mann and Spaeth, on this 
subject. 

REMARKS OF REV. W. J. MANN, D. D. [General Council) 
It is practically impossible to draw a line of demarkation between 
the English and the German; it is impossible in family life, in social 
intercourse, and everywhere. This condition of the Lutheran 
Church in this country, is a simple fact, but as such a very stubborn 
thing. It only requires of the two parties, thus brought into contact, 
some degree of good will and common sense, and things will soon 
set themselves right. The German, being placed in an entirely new 
order of things, in Church, State, and society, has to learn a good 
deal and is benefited by it. The Americans also have to learn from 
the Germans. There is not a pastor's library, from Maine to Cali- 
fornia, in which you cannot find translations of German theological 
works; and the influence of German literature, for good or for evil, 
is felt all over the world. Consequently, Lutheran theological stu- 
dents, especially, can do nothing better than to do their best in study- 
ing German, and thus make themselves infinitely more useful. 

REMARKS OF REV. A. SPAETH, D. D. {General Council.) 
I am heartily with those who oppose the separation or division of 
the Church on the basis of language alone. I am so warmly attached 
to the old Synod of Pennsylvania, because it is, as Dr. Krotel calls 



DISCUSSION. 177 

it, the paradise for those who understand both languages. I have 
never opposed, nor will I ever oppose, the tranfer of a member of 
my German Lutheran congregation to an English "Lutheran" 
church, simply on account of the language. But if the hope is ex- 
pressed, that the members of our German Lutheran churches would 
feel themselves more at home in the English churches, if they would 
there find the gown, the altar, the baptismal font, and other features 
of a churchly character, I wish to correct such an idea. Wherever 
there is a truly Lutheran feeling amongst our people, these outward 
things will not in themselves satisfy them as the signs of the true 
Church of their fathers. Our people will have to look for other evi- 
dences. They will have to regard the doctrine taught in the congre- 
gation, with which they intend to connect themselves; they will 
have to examine the books of worship, the "Catechism," etc. And 
though the gown should be used in this church of St. Matthew's, 
and though our old German tunes should be sung, which are so 
dear to my heart, still I could not and would not recommend this 
congregation to any member of my church, as long as he would 
find here another catechism, than the pure, unaltered Catechism 
of Dr. Martin Luther. Let us first be one, truly one in the faith, 
and the difference of language will not be able to separate us ! 

After a few remarks by Rev. H. S. Cook, the discussion was closed 
by Dr. Luther as follows : 

REMARKS OF DILLER LUTHER, M. D. {General Synod.) 

The injury caused by the conflict of languages to Lutheran 
Churches, particularly in the earlier period, is so well known that I 
am surprised any one should deny it. If the clerical brother from 
Bethlehem, will but inquire into the history of those churches in 
past years, he will find that their decline is owing to that single 
cause, and that in almost every locality, the congregations of other 
denominations are composed very largely of persons received from 
Lutheran families. 



178 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

It has been stated also that little or no difficulty occurs from this 
cause at this time, that interchanges are made from time to time 
between English and German congregations, and that these transfers 
are made in a spirit of the utmost good will. This is just what we 
desire to see, but will my friend Dr. Albert inform us to what extent 
this kind of fraternal amiability is practiced in his community? I 
can understand that when a member finds he has made a mistake, 
and is not in the Church to suit him, that he will be handed over to 
another ; but I have yet to see the minister or church that will part 
with one-half or two-thirds of the membership, without manifesting 
very decided displeasure. 

But this does not touch the point in the argument. That these 
transfers should be made and are desirable, is just what we plead for, 
because as we now have both German and English churches at 
almost every place, they are perfectly practicable. Formerly this was 
not the case. And even yet, in many instances, it is not practiced, but 
sternly discountenanced. What I complain of, is, that the German 
portion of the Church has never adopted a policy favorable to build- 
ing up English Lutheran churches, and that, therefore, it is to the 
interest of both parties to pursue their work separately. Both par- 
ties have become too strong to be controlled or trammeled. So long 
as immigration continues, we will have a German and English party 
— a German and English policy. For it must be remembered that 
our Church in this country, is exceptional, in that it is composed of 
people of two different tongues. Hence our trouble. The attempt 
to conduct religious work together in the churches, was a mistake 
and a failure from the very beginning. 

When my learned friend, Dr. Mann, states that he would consider 
it a hardship, to be deprived of the pleasure of social intercourse 
with his children, because of their being instructed in several mod- 
ern languages, I can understand perfectly that these accomplish- 
ments will not in any degree disturb the domestic harmony. But 
this does not convey a proper idea of the difficulty. When persons 



\ 



DISCUSSION. 179 

of two or three different nationalities, with their families — German, 
French, and if you choose, Irish — undertake to keep house 
together, will the doctor favor us with his opinion, whether a very 
exalted degree of social happiness, is to be expected in a household 
thus made up? And yet the kindest and most friendly relations may 
be maintained between them by living separately. And so it is with 
churches and congregations, where discrepancies such as have been 
referred to exist — the greatest harmony, unity and co-operation are to 
be found, not in intimate association, but in the separate pursuit of 
the work of the Church. Separation in the way pointed out, does 
not mean antagonism. It is the way to peace, and the method best 
calculated to ensure the largest growth and prosperity, for both 
branches of the Church. 

The seventh paper was then read. 



MISUNDERSTANDINGS AND MISREPRESENTATIONS 
OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH. 

BY REV. JOS. A. SEISS, D. D., PHILADELPHIA, PA. 

IT seems to be the fate of Lutherans, even from the beginning, 
to be under necessity to contend with an infinite variety of mis- 
understandings and misrepresentations. 

Before the great Diet of Augsburg was held, Luther tells us, a 
certain doctor was sent from France to Wittenberg, who publicly 
declared that the French monarch was fully persuaded there was no 
church, no magistrate, no wedlock, among Lutherans, but that all 
lived promiscuously, each according to his inclination, as mere brutes. 

Alphonsus, chaplain of one of the high dignitaries of Spain, after 
hearing the Augsburg Confession read to the Emperor, said to 
Melanchthon, " Dear Philip, in Spain we hear quite other things of 
you; for there the people are taught to believe that you are men 
who deny the Holy Trinity, speak in a blasphemous manner of 
Christ and His holy mother, pervert the Sacraments, hold the Lord's 
Supper to be no more than any other sign, disregard authorities, 
live in open unchastity, and give place to other dreadful sins and 
lusts." 

The presentation of that immortal document, which is the com- 
mon confessional bond and note of all proper Lutherans, served to 
sweep away effectually all such slanders, where people have been 
at the pains and honesty to inform themselves. But still, even after 
the lapse of three centuries and a half, filled with the noblest, clear- 
est, and most widely-sounded testimonies of the modern ages, the 
abuses of the public mind, in some quarters, are hardly less out- 
rageous, if some who claim to be instructors are to be believed. 
Yea, surely, if to have all manner of evil said against us falsely is a 
blessedness, then are Lutherans a highly blessed people. 

Often from within, as well as from without, the presentations 
have sometimes been awry. Even in the wording of the theme as- 
signed me, there is a phrase — one in the most common use, and for 

(180) 



DR. SEISS ESSAY. l8l 

which it is hard to find a substitute equally convenient, yet liable 
to give an erroneous impression, and conveying an idea which some 
accept and argue from without perhaps proper foundation for so do- 
ing. We talk and write familiarly about " The Lutheran Church." 
We know what we mean by it, and in some measure the terms ex- 
press what we mean. But, taken in the same sense in which we 
speak of the Roman Catholic Church, the Greek Church, or the 
Church of England, the phrase is not quite correct. In that sense 
there is no such thing as The Lutheran Church. There are Luther- 
ans by the million ; there are particular ecclesiastical establishments, 
in different countries, which accept and confess the Lutheran form- 
ulas of doctrine; there are Lutheran Churches, Synods, and general 
consociations ; and, for convenience, we may call the totality of 
these, The Lutheran Church. But in so far as corporate oneness, 
organic unity, interdependence of one part on another, or uniform- 
ity of government and administration, are implied, the language is 
inapplicable and misleading. 

Taking it as part of our fundamental confession, that it is not 
necessary that human traditions, rites, or ceremonies, instituted by 
men, should be everywhere alike, the Lutheran Churches, from 
the beginning, exhibited very great differences and variety in their 
liturgies, their forms of government, and their methods of doing. 
In some countries, the old Episcopal order has been retained, as in 
Sweden; in others, a new semi-Episcopal arrangement was insti- 
tuted; in a few places an independent Congregationalism held; and 
no one general court for the whole has at any time existed. Like 
the primitive Churches, the Lutherans never have had any govern- 
mental concorporation with each other. They have no one outward 
head or centre. They do not acknowledge themselves amenable to 
any one earthly ecclesiastical authority. And whilst we can very 

properly speak of Lutheran confessions — of Lutheran Churches 

provincial and individual — of Lutheran consistories, synods and 
consociations, and may readily trace a common family likeness be- 
tween them, more or less answering to their family name — when 
we come to speak of the whole as The Lutheran Church, we cannot 
do so in truth in any such sense as would imply a common jurisdic- 
tion, organic connection, unity of external order, or any corpora- 
tion or establishment to command, bind, or speak with authority. 
Whether it be our infirmity or our glory, such is the fact, and there 
is no way of altering it. 



152 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Many of the books in popular circulation describe Lutherans as 
"the disciples and followers of Martin Luther," " the followers of 
the doctrine of Martin Luther," "the followers of Luther,'' "those 
Christians who follow the opinions of Martin Luther." In a subor- 
dinate and imperfect sense, this language may be tolerated. It re- 
calls an incidental historical fact, which it partially expresses, but 
connects with it a suggestion which is entirely unjust. Our accepted 
name would seem to warrant it ; but it quite ignores the restricted 
and only sense in which that name is accepted. Though we be 
called Lutherans, it is not that we build on Luther, or accept him 
as our prophet, or fashion our belief or religion to anything attach- 
ing to his person, or to any supposed authority on his part to pro- 
pound a new faith, or to make a new Church. We do, indeed, recog- 
nize in Luther a noble instrument of God's providence, in recalling 
the Church and the world from the destroying errors and aberra- 
tions which had crept into Christendom, and in directing attention 
again to the old foundations of the one only Gospel of salvation. 
Notwithstanding the adverse judgments of such scholars as Palivicini, 
Hallam, Hamilton, Pusey, and others of lesser note, we gratefully 
acknowledge him as a highly gifted servant of Jesus Christ, the sin- 
cerity of whose heart, the purity of whose aims, the strength of whose 
character, the clearness and vigor of whose faith, and the value of 
whose evangelic labors render him one of the most deserving of 
men, and one of the chief treasures of Christendom since the days 
of the Apostles. Still, it is not Luther we follow, but the Word of 
Almighty God, delivered by Apostles and Prophets, which he so 
clearly perceived, and did so much to restore to mankind. He 
brought forth the old Bible, released it from its bonds, and re-enun- 
ciated it as the divine and only rule of faith and life. So we also 
receive and hold that sacred Book of books, albeit, not for Luther's 
sake, but for the sake of that God who therein speaks to men, and 
demands this of all who would be His children. To the one only 
way of salvation through faith in the only Mediator, the God-man, 
Christ Jesus, he was marvelously led; and the same he re-asserted 
from the sacred oracles of the written Word over against the falsities 
with which the Papal system had encumbered and obscured it. This 
one only way of salvation we embrace, and hold forth to a perishing 
world as man's only hope — not, indeed, for Luther's sake, or be- 
cause Luther taught it, but because it is the veritable truth of Jeho- 



DR. SEISS' ESSAY. 1 83 

vah, and the heart and sum of all the teachings of Divine Revelation. 
For such agreement with Luther, enemies have attached to us his 
name ; and for such agreement we care not to disown it, lest we 
should be found disowning or compromising the truth of God. But 
Luther is not our Lord and Master, as Mahomet to the Mahometans, 
or the Pope of Rome to the poor misbelievers who accept his dicta 
as infallible. In any sense, therefore, involving authority in Luther 
to teach or command us, except as God's own written Word teaches, 
we are not his disciples or followers. 

In a recent work on The Creeds of Christendom, quoted by one 
of the essayists who has preceded me, among other ungracious 
things said of the Lutherans, the stale charge of man-worship is 
again insinuated against us. " The towering greatness of Luther" 
is there put forward as the particular fly in the ointment of our 
sanctity. We may be excused for remanding it to its source as a 
particular falsehood. Whether the enunciator of the truth be a 
saint or sinner, great or small, that truth we must acknowledge. 
Mere persons, or the worth and credit of men, are nothing to the 
obligations of truth. For this reason we would be bound to ac- 
knowledge Luther as a witness, were he a score of times greater or 
less than he was. Gold is gold, whether on the finger of the king, 
or on the neck of a harlot ; and the truth is the truth, equally di- 
vine and binding, whoever speaks it. We are bound to confess it, 
fully and without stint, even with a Martin Luther, though his 
" towering greatness" be " a misfortune," and " a constant tempta- 
tion to hero-worship." But we are not quite ready to admit that 
God, in ordering His Providence concerning His Church, made a 
grand mistake in not availing Himself of the wisdom of certain Re- 
formed theologians. 

Of late years, a class of writers and ecclesiastical operators has 
arisen, who have discovered that, somehow, the great Reformation, 
though necessary, was a great mistake. They have come to the 
conclusion that it was an unfortunate dislocation in the Church of 
Christ. Accepting, in general, the principles which governed it, 
and, in some instances, subscribing to a very Lutheranizing creed, 
they yet have most serious fault to find with Luther, with the out- 
come of the Evangelical cause in general, and with its representa- 
tion by Lutheranism in particular. They admit that some break 
was unavoidable, but speak of the fracture as badly managed — "a 



1 84 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

leg badly set, which needs to be broken again to be set right." In 
the ideal held forth by these people, Lutherans are necessarily schis- 
matics, and full of vital defects. We do not rightly conceive of the 
Church. We have not been careful enough to retain the episcopate, 
and do not lay sufficient stress upon orders. We are too radical in 
our denial of the priestly mediatorship of the clergy, and the self- 
operating power of episcopally administered sacraments. Our doc- 
trine of justification by faith only, is too antinomian, unsafe for 
souls, and detrimental to practical godliness. And, in one way 
or another, they have a particular quarrel with Luther and the 
Lutherans. 

This sort of twaddle has its "head centre" among the Tractari- 
ans and High Churchmen of England, who are echoed by a some- 
what corresponding class in this country. Scores of the greatest 
lights in the English establishment, for 300 years, were accustomed 
to speak of the Lutheran Churches of the Continent, as " the Church 
of England's dearest sisters abroad." One of the greatest champ- 
ions and defenders of the English establishments, "the judicious 
Hooker," put it in his greatest book, " I dare not deny the salva- 
tion of the Lutheran Churches, which have been the chiefest instru- 
ments of ours." In the times of the formation of the Church of 
England, the Lutheran theologians were looked to as the preemi- 
nent representatives of renewed and proper Christianity, and were 
besought and welcomed to take the highest places which that estab- 
lishment had to give. In our day, the Lutheran Prince Albert, of 
Germany, and the Lutheran Princess Alexandria, of Scandinavia, 
are as fully acknowledged by the English Church as its own noble 
Queen Victoria, and that Queen's daughters are transferred to the 
churches of the Continent without thought or ceremony of a change 
of religion. And these new doctors themselves have, as their only 
public creed to this day, those Articles of Religion which have been 
shown to be so largely derived from the Lutheran Formulas, and 
use and honor a Book of Common Prayer, whose main contents 
have come through Lutheran hands, and bear a Lutheran mold. 
And yet, when they come to speak of Luther and the Lutherans, 
they exclaim in holy horror at the defects and heresies they find. 
With them Protestantism is a failure, and indefensible without radi- 
cal changes. It must be reconstructed. The whole Reformation 
must be done over. The past 350 years must be ignored, and a 



DR. SEISS' ESSAY. 1 85 

new departure taken. Just what the new thing is to be, they are 
not yet able to tell. That is the problem yet to be worked out. 
Whether or not we are to have a pope, to serve as a centre of the 
new unity, is an open question; only the schism of the 16th century 
must somehow be healed. Concerning the infallible supremacy, 
purgatory, and the worship of the Virgin Mary, a little "under- 
standing" is necessary, but that can be afterwards adjusted. The 
existing Formulas must be revised and denuded of their positiveness. 
The doctrine of justification by faith must be set aside, at least from 
the central position which the Lutherans assign it. Ministerial 
orders and sacerdotalism must be restored, and duly legitimated. 
The confessional, and the whole round of a gaudy ceremonial, 
minus, perhaps, a few abuses, must be brought back. Brotherhoods 
and sisterhoods, with special vows and commissions, must be en- 
couraged and re-established. Good works and special sanctities 
must have more stress laid upon them. And so the suggestions run 
on. But the real spirit is easily divined. It carries its mark on its 
forehead. 7/ means Romanism — return to the old abominations of 
Egypt and Babylon, whither scores on scores of these new Reform- 
ers have already betaken themselves, as the only outcome of this pro- 
posed resetting of the limb so badly managed by the old doctors. 
The multitudinousness of the perverts to Rome by this road, ought, 
of itself, to open the eyes of all thinking people to the folly and ruin 
of listening to such quacks as would fain repair the bungled surgery 
under which the most virtuous and enlightened of the earth, for 
three and a half centuries, have lived and prospered. 

As to the tumid assaults of these people on the great Reformer, 
Archdeacon Hare has made noble answer, in his triumphant Vindi- 
cation of Luther. He has shown to their shame, how little they 
knew of him whom they so harshly judge, how little they cared to 
know of him, and with what malignant prejudice they have rehashed 
and exaggerated the false and oft-refuted charges of the Romish con- 
troversialists. Bossuet's Variations and Moehler's Symbolik have 
furnished about the only armor they have brought to bear in the 
case. And from the base insinuations and garbled quotations thence 
derived, these new lights have ventured assertions which even the 
Romish partisans, in all their hatred, did not dare to make. 

That a great and incurable breach did occur between the Lutherans 
and Rome during the 16th century, history amply attests. But 
13 



1 86 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

that it was a guilty schism from the true Catholic Church, the sin of 
which lies at our door, is an unmodified falsehood, as all the facts 
conclusively prove. Palmer, in his Treatise on the Church, without 
at all touching the real depths of the matter, quite exculpates our 
fathers from every shade and degree of separatism or schism. Had 
he put the whole case, the showing to his purpose would have been 
completely overwhelming. 

From the days of the Apostles to the time of Luther, there was 
not a creed of the true Catholic Church which the Lutherans did 
not fully accept and retain ; not a heresy or perversion of the truth 
condemned and rejected by the true Catholic Church, which the Lu- 
therans did not likewise condemn and reject ; not a book of the 
sacred Canon, not a law for interpreting the Scriptures, not a prin- 
ciple with reference to their authority and use, not a legitimate tri- 
bunal for the final settlement of controversies about the faith, ac- 
cepted and approved by the true Catholic Church, which the Lu- 
therans did not also accept, approve, and propose to abide by. In 
the greatest of their Confessions, solemnly laid before the Diet of the 
empire in the name of them all, the assertion is made, and reiterated 
again and again, as holding throughout the twenty-eight articles, and 
in all the sum of doctrine held and taught among Lutherans, that 
" there is nothing which is discrepant with the Scriptures, or with 
the Church Catholic, or even with the Roman Church, so far as that 
Church is known from the writings of the fathers." x\nd in all 
the controversies then or thereafter, no one has ever been able to 
show that it was not the exact truth. It therefore follows, that, in 
all matters of faith and doctrine, which are everywhere and always 
the chief and constitutive things of the Church, the Lutherans were 
neither heretics nor schismatics. 

And as to external fellowship, there never was, among any people, 
a more earnest and persistent endeavor to maintain connection with 
the order which then obtained, than that which the Lutherans 
exhibited. When the Reformation begun, Luther had not the slight- 
est idea of separating from the Church. Nay, from first to last, he 
never ceased to appeal to its authority, and to pledge himself to the 
most humble obedience whensoever its legitimate decision should be 
duly ascertained. He even wrote the pope, in terms so submissive 
that they now look more like the words of a craven, than those of a 
defiant revolutionist. Everywhere, and on all occasions, he held 



DR. SEISS' ESSAY. 1 87 

himself as ready to recant as he had been to assert, provided only, 
that it should first be fairly shown that he held or taught " contrary 
to the Scriptures, the councils, and the fathers." He was willing to 
accept any German bishop as his judge, and to abide by the decision. 
He ever protested that he never meant to attack or injure the author- 
ity of the Roman Church, to cause disturbances about small matters, 
or to refuse obedience in anything which should lawfully be required 
of him. And even when condemned and excommunicated by the 
pope, he still expressed submissive acknowledgment of the authority 
of the Church, and earnestly sought to maintain his fellowship with 
it, by a legitimate appeal to a general council. This was the atti- 
tude at the Diet of Spires, at the Diet of Augsburg, and on all occa- 
sions while the great controversy raged. In the name of all Luther- 
ans, the Augsburg Confession proposed and agreed that the whole 
Romish jurisdiction might stand and would be humbly obeyed, pro- 
vided certain usages and traditions contrary to the Word of God 
were not enforced. Conference after conference did the Lutherans 
seek and attend with a view to adjust the trouble, and always with a 
spirit at antipodes with the spirit of sect and schism. They were 
willing to do everything, and bear anything, provided only that they 
should be left in peace and quietness to hold, preach and practice 
according to their profound convictions of the teachings of the 
Scriptures and of the true Catholic Church. 

But this proviso did not suit the proud conceit and usurped 
dominion of the papacy. And because, in right obedience and 
loyalty to God and conscience, our fathers could not consent to let 
go the Word of God, and would not debauch themselves any more 
with the worship of saints and relics of dead men, nor trust in any 
mediator but Jesus, nor allow human works, payments or goodnesses 
as entering into the procuring cause of forgiveness of sins, Rome 
excommunicated them, by cities, nations and millions, thrust them 
away from her fellowship, and delivered them over to her intensest 
anathemas forever. 

Thus came about the tremendous dislocation ; but by no fault of 
the Reformers. Rome forced the issue, and made the decision, and 
with her must rest the blame that belongs to the result. The one 
only alternative was, either to let the eternal and saving truth of 
God be stifled and smothered under the incrustations of damning 
falsehood and superstition, allowing the race of man to drift on to 



1 88 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

perdition without the light God in mercy gave for our salvation, or 
the Churches called Lutheran had to come into independent being. And 
with this .as the one distinct question in the case, is there a true man 
living to doubt which was the side of right ? As the authority of 
God is above popes — as man's obligation to truth is above all other 
claims — as the worth of a pure Gospel is above all man-made regu- 
lations and outward order — as self-sacrifice for the truth's sake is 
above sacrifice of the truth for self s sake, — so great, and so com- 
plete, is the justification of the existence of our Churches, as over 
against Rome ; the Tractarians to the contrary notwithstanding. 

As remarked in several of the essays already presented, it is our 
lot to live in days, and in a land, of sects and denominations, in 
which altar is set up against altar, society against society, and 
meeting and ministry against meeting and ministry, begetting the 
utmost confusion and perplexity to simple and honest inquirers, 
and shamefully distracting and weakening the whole Protestant 
cause. The evil of this state of things is deeply felt and largely 
deplored. It is seen to be a fruitful cause of indifferentism, and a 
self-justifying nothingarianism, enervating and obliterating the 
Church, strengthening the hands of infidelity, and trampling under 
foot the truth as it is in Jesus. Again and again, the evil thing has 
been multiplied by attempts to cure it, and the anti-sectarians have 
shown themselves the greatest makers and fosterers of sects. Even 
the unionism and undenominationalism with which many good- 
meaning people would salve it over, tend only to encourage it, and 
to make it appear innocent. That there is great wrong in it, most 
agree ; but the sin of it is continually being lodged at the wrong 
place, and those most adverse to it, and the most consistently ar- 
rayed against it, are generally loaded with the blame for it. 

In this babel of beliefs, unbeliefs and non-beliefs, the Lutherans 
are frequently put down as one of the sects, on the common basis of 
all the rest, only a little more sectarian, because not generally so 
pliant with regard to the thousand goodishnesses got up for all sects 
and Churches alike to take hold of and sustain. And just here there 
is another grand mistake and misrepresentation, which needs to be 
pointedly brought out. This splitting up of Christendom into 
fragments and separatistic fractions, we do most heartily lament 
and deplore as an unspeakable evil ; but we distinctly and unquali- 
fiedly disclaim all responsibility for it. The breach with Rome we 



DR. SEISS* ESSAY. 1 89 

accept, and go before the world, before angels, and before God, for 
our justification in that business. Everything was done that could 
be done, but Rome would not in any sense or degree tolerate us 
without a surrender of the evangelical faith of God's Word. For 
the old and everlasting truth we were made a separate communion, 
not by our secession, but by Rome's unwarranted and persistent 
excommunication. We were thrust out by a monstrous usurpation, 
and there was no other help for the Gospel or for us. 

But which of all the antagonizing sects or parties around us can 
plead such an apology for their separate being ? The Lutheran 
Churches existed, in great and mighty strength, before them. The 
Lutheran communion was born, baptized, confirmed, and had 
reached its sublime majority, before any of these bodies had 
their present form or being. Ere they were, we had already so 
fully grasped the proper evangelic truth and life, and recovered 
and defined such a doctrinal and liturgical basis and foundation for 
the conservation of the pure Church and wholesome Christian 
growth and sanctification, that it must for ever remain an embar- 
rassing puzzle to all subsequent separatists and denominations to give 
just and Christian answer why they exist, and continue to maintain 
their separatism. In this country, something must indeed be al- 
lowed for the differences of nationality, and the home education of 
the different classes of colonists here thrown together. It also may 
be hard to find out a practical cure for what all seem to lament. 
But, when it comes to the kernel and right of the thing, so far as these 
separate communions have any true, settled and saving Christian 
faith, or any just title to be called true Churches of Jesus Christ, it 
is simply and only because they have accepted the teachings, copied 
the Confessions, and built upon the foundations, which the Luther- 
ans before them had dug out of the papal congest, and made their 
own. There is no Episcopalianism, no Presbyterianism, no Con- 
gregationalism, no Methodism, and no other kind of ism, so far as 
unmistakably grounded on the Scriptures of God, or reconcilable 
with the orthodox historic faith of the Church of Christ, which 
really needed for itself, or needs now, any other communion, or 
establishment, than the one original Protestant Church, which we 
represent, and from which they all, directly, or indirectly, derived 
the essential substance of all the Christian doctrine and faith they 
have. Some of them are built on particular forms of government, 



igO FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

some on particular human methods, some on particular rites and 
ceremonies, or modes of administering divine ordinances, and some 
on mere accidents ; but none of these things enter properly into 
the being and legitimacy of the Church. They have ever varied 
with times, countries and circumstances, without affecting the divine 
foundations of faith and salvation. Some of them are more desir- 
able and edifying than others; but they are not therefore just 
grounds on which to erect separate and antagonizing communions. 
Because they are not essential, therefore some argue the right to 
exercise their own pleasure in the matter, and so would justify sec- 
tarianism. But the true bearing is exactly in the contrary direc- 
tion. Because these things do not enter into the essential being of 
the Church, therefore, to emphasize them in such way as to make 
them the corner-stones of separate and antagonizing communions, 
is to pervert the Gospel, and to build the Church of God on what 
is variable, indifferent, accidental, provisional and human, instead 
of on the divine verities which are everywhere and always the same. 
That which determines the character, legitimacy, and proper Chris- 
tianity of a Church, is its true, clear, rotund, balanced and unmis- 
takable confession of the doctrines of salvation through the incar- 
nate Son of God, as set forth in the Scriptures, and contained and 
verifiable in the testimony of the true Catholic Church from the 
beginning. Where this already is and lives, whatever other diversi- 
ties exist, or particular preferences are unmet, there is the true 
Church of Christ, in its just and sufficient integrity ; so that he 
who dissents and separates from it, to set up an opposing commun- 
ion, thereby makes himself guilty of sectarianism and schism. 
And with whatever pretexts he may seek to cloak and embellish 
his doings, he will ever try in vain to make out a justification for 
himself from these Scriptures. 

We do not say, and far be it from me to say, that saving doc- 
trines of Christ are nowhere held and taught but in the Lutheran 
Churches so called. We know to the contrary, and are happy to 
acknowledge the fact, to honor the truth wherever we find it, and to 
treat as Christians all who prove themselves such. Such at least is 
my case. But it is our right to say, on the clear evidences of holy 
Scripture and historic verity, that the true and only saving doctrines 
of Jesus Christ are embraced, held and taught by the Lutheran 
Churches and Confessions, fully, purely, and without stint or distor- 



DR. SEISS ESSAY. I9I 

tion ; and were thus held and taught before the multitudinous par- 
ties and sects about us had a being. Nay, this also may be added in 
all confidence, that if salvation cannot be securely found and ob- 
tained in the Churches called Lutheran, there is no such thing as sal- 
vation. What true God is there whom our Churches do not confess 
and worship; or false god, which they do not reject and despise? 
What true Scripture of God is there which they do not receive and 
teach, or false scripture which they do not cast from them and con- 
demn ? What true Christ is there who is not the centre of their 
Creed, hope and trust'; or Anti-christ against whom they do not 
warn and admonish with all fidelity ? What means of grace have 
been ordained of God which they do not use and insist on having 
used ; or what substitutes or superadditions devised by man, which 
they do not censure and oppose ? What divine promises or terms of 
salvation are there, which they do not put before men for their 
spiritual comfort ; or false hopes against which they do not caution ? 
What genuine Gospel is there which they do not confess and 
preach, or true ministry of God which they do not acknowledge, or 
other thing entering into the substance of Christianity which they 
do not accept and defend ? And in all the reforms and improve- 
ments by which men have thought to get up something better, more 
Scriptural, more effective, where, in all the length and breadth of this 
earth, can be found a more thoroughly tried and reliable guide and 
helper to the full truth of God, a sanctified life, and eternal salva- 
tion, than the system of faith and life confessed and upheld by the 
Lutherans ? And as this communion of believers existed, and had 
spread itself out among the nations, before any of our modern sects 
and parties were, we scorn to be rated as one of them, and before 
God most solemnly disclaim all share in the unholy business of 
which they are the cherished memorials. If men will accept and 
honor them as right, legitimate and Christian, and thus lend them- 
selves, influence and means, to perpetuate the distractions which so 
weaken and disgrace the cause of evangelic Christianity, we cannot 
say them nay; but on them be the burden of answering for it to 
their Maker and Judge ; for we have no part nor lot in the matter. 

With reference to the more particular doctrines of our Lutheran 
Confessions, there are also many misunderstandings and misrepre- 
sentations abroad, which ought of right to be touched. Indeed, 
there seems to be an incurable obtuseness in some people to com- 



192 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

prehend what Lutherans hold and teach, though there is not another 
communion in the world which has so fully, exhaustively, and on 
all points, set forth its doctrines, as the Lutheran. 

On the great and all-important subject of the Person of Christ, 
people persist in misrepresenting us, and often to the great damage 
of their own clearness of faith, and consistent apprehension of 
salvation. 

The same is true with regard to our doctrines concerning the 
means of grace, particularly of the sacraments of Baptism and the 
Lord's Supper. People wish to get away as far as possible from 
everything which they think smacks of Romanism, and by their un- 
guarded assumptions disable themselves, so that they cannot see the 
difference between our pure scriptural teachings and the monstrous 
perversions and abominations of the Council of Trent. With our 
blessed Lord, we teach the necessity of being " bom of water and of 
the Spirit ;" with the inspired Paul, we do not hesitate to speak of the 
application of salvation " by the washing (or bath; of regeneration, 
and renewing of the Holy Ghost;" and, with all the teachings of 
the New Testament, we constantly refer to Baptism as a great spirit- 
ual treasure ; and lo ! we are charged with the superstition of at- 
taching a magic charm to a mere outward ceremony! When we 
speak of the Word as an earthly vehicle or medium in and through 
which the Saviour communicates Himself and His salvation, there is 
no difficulty in understanding us ; but when we say the same thing 
of the corresponding "visible Word" — of the Lord's Supper — peo- 
ple exclaim in horror, ' ' TransubstantiatiorC ' — ' ' Consubstantiation, ' ' 
— or some other abomination, which our Confessions distinctly reject 
and condemn, and all our theologians repudiate. The old lie of the 
sacramentarian controversialists, so often refuted and exposed, which 
charges the monstrosity of consubstantiation upon our invulnerable 
doctrine of the Holy Eucharist, we had hoped was effectually buried, 
never to appear again in any author worthy of respect ; but, alas, I 
find it resurrected, and again put forth, in the recent volumes on 
The Creeds of Christendom, to the great discredit of their author, 
who certainly ought to know better, if he does not. 

And even among professed Lutherans themselves, from one cause 
or another, the presentations of our position and spirit have not always 
been as consistent and just as they should have been. Everything 
with which man has to do, however sacred or good, will show the 



DR. SEISS ESSAY. 1 93 

traces of his weaknesses. And so has it been here. There have 
been, and there still are, particular schools and tendencies, bearing 
the Lutheran name, which have proven about as sectarian as the 
sects, some in the way of alleged devotion to the faith, and some in 
the way of laxity with regard to it. Like the Church universal, in 
the earlier times, our Churches have had their more favorable and 
their less favorable ages, sections and departments. And what has 
been in the past, is still largely represented in the present. There 
are those who unfortunately lose sight of the fact, that Lutheranism 
commenced with a Melanchthon as well as a Luther; while others 
are equally oblivious to the fact that it embraced a Ltither, as well 
as a Melanchthon. Within it, and of it, there has been a Helm- 
staedt and a Halle, as well as a Wittenberg and a Leipsic; but, 
at the same time, a Wittenberg and a Leipsic, as well as a Helm- 
staedt and a Halle. 

What I take to be the true soul and spirit of our Churches is not 
what appears in any one of these tendencies, past or present, as over 
against the other, or without the other ; but the one interpenetrated, 
permeated and modified by the other, each in each, in one living, 
golden mean of all, the best illustration of which is perhaps to be 
found in the illustrious intermediate school of Jena. Professed 
Lutherans misrepresent their Confession, largely negative it, and 
compromise their cause, by sympathizing too freely with Calixtus, 
Horneius, Dreir and Latermann ; but they do no better for them- 
selves, or for the Church, when they propose to swear every body 
by the Consensus Repetitus, or give place to the spirit which felt 
itself constrained to bring two hundred and sixty-three charges of 
heretical error against the pure and heavenly-minded Spener. 

But I cannot now enter further on these matters. Perhaps, in the 
judgment of some, I have not myself succeeded in making the right 
presentations. But what I have written I have written, and must 
abide by the results. 

With these observations I submit the subject ,to those who are to 
follow me. 



194 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

REMARKS OF REV. C. W. SCHAEFFER, D. D. {General Council.) 

Dr. Seiss has said that the Lutheran Church cannnot be charged 
either with heresy or with schism ; and furthermore, as I think I 
understood, that there is no evangelical doctrine accepted by the 
Church of Christ which the Lutheran Church does not confess, and 
no error in doctrine rejected by the Church which the Lutheran 
Church does not condemn. This being admitted, and I believe it, 
what value ought we to attach to the Confessions of the Lutheran 
Church ? how should we understand and represent them ? 

Not long ago I read an article in print, that ended somewhat in 
this manner, "We believe in a perfect Bible, in a perfect forgiveness 
of sin, in a perfect Saviour ; but we have no idea that such a thing, 
as a perfect creed exists." But are not the facts such that we 
ought to recognize Divine guidance in the preparation of our Con- 
fessions, and discountenance insinuations against their reliability as 
Confessions ? 

What was the character of the Reformation itself? Was it a 
Divine work, or merely or chiefly human ? No doubt we will all 
be prompt in recognizing, even in the midst of all its human in- 
strumentalities, the presence, the controlling influence of Divine 
wisdom and power and grace, in the beginning and promoting of 
that great work of the Church. 

Now when the time came for the Church to do an act of the 
very highest importance for itself and for the glory of its Head 
and of His truth, that is, to declare its answer to the revelation of 
the Gospel, and to confess its faith in the Divine word, ought we 
not rather to believe that the same Divine guidance which had 
been granted to it hitherto, would be specially near and positive and 
active in the execution of such a work ? The promises of the aid 
and teachings of the Holy Ghost, according to the Word, are still 
in force, and they are on record for all time. Does not the proper 
understanding and truthful representation of the Lutheran Church, 
then, require of us a recognition of this element in the preparation 



DISCUSSION. 195 

of her Confessions ? Does it not forbid us to place those Confes- 
sions on the low level of ordinary human productions, which, what- 
ever may be their ability, are always strongly marked by human 
ignorance and infirmity? 

We ought rather to maintain, that the Confessions, as Confes- 
sions and as far as they go, are perfect, true, unerring testimonies 
of the Divine word, and may be safely relied upon. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. A. BROWN, D. D. {General Synod.) 
It is possible that Dr. Schaeffer has done me the honor of referring 
to something that I have said and printed. At least I have used 
language of a somewhat similar character. If I am mistaken, both 
he and this Diet will pardon me for presuming that I may be the 
person referred to. I did say in print, not long ago, " We believe 
in an infallible Bible, an infallible Saviour, bid an infallible Creed, 
and an infallible Church, we do not believe in, whether the pretence 
is set up in the General Council or by Rome;" and by this declara- 
tion I am ready to stand, here in this Diet, and everywhere. I 
take no backward step from this position, as it is fundamental to Pro- 
testantism, as well as to genuine Lutheranism. There is but one 
perfect book, but one infallible record of Divine truth, — the inspired 
Word of God. This is infallible just because it is inspired, and 
"holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." 
This absolute infallibility is true only of the Scriptures as contained 
in the originals. We do not affirm it of any translation, ancient or 
modern, however excellent. These translations are more or less 
imperfect, and are subject to change and improvement from time to 
time, and must be compared with the infallible originals to deter- 
mine their merit. They may answer for all practical purposes, but 
it would be absurd to set up a claim of infallibility for any version, 
as Rome has done for the Vulgate. The final appeal must be to the 
original inspired Word. If this be true of any and every translation 
of the Bible, how much more so in regard to any production of 
mere men? 



ig6 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

It is of the utmost importance that we understand and maintain 
the truth in this respect. Creeds or Confessions are merely human 
productions, and everything human is imperfect and fallible. There 
is no infallibility in Popes, or Councils, or the makers of Creeds. 
Every Creed, from the Apostles' down, has been subjected to revis- 
ings and alterations. The Augsburg Confession underwent changes 
and improvements until nearly the last hour before its presentation 
to the Emperor at Augsburg ; and almost immediately afterwards, 
Melanchthon continued his work of altering and trying to amend. 
At present, among the various editions, no one can tell what was 
the true original Augsburg Confession. We have editions in Latin 
and German varying considerably, and we can only approximate to 
the original Augsburg Confession. Which is the perfect, infallible 
one ? The case of different editions of the original Scriptures fur- 
nishes no parallel, for there we know where to look for infallibility. 

We are willing and ready, according to our humble ability, to 
advocate and defend the Augsburg Confession, over against other 
modern confessions, as the very best and most Scriptural of them 
all. We admire its truly Catholic and Evangelical character. As a 
Confession, and for the legitimate purposes of a Confession, we may 
be justly proud of it as our own. But when there is set up for it a 
claim, which we believe to be unwarrantable, and inconsistent with 
the very character of a Confession of Faith, then we feel bound to 
utter our protest. When real or virtual infallibility is claimed for 
this or any other human production as a Confession of Faith, to 
which we are to be absolutely bound, as we are to the Word of God, 
as the Rule of our faith, we must proclaim our dissent. On this 
point we would not be misunderstood, and we are glad to believe 
and know that we are standing on firm Lutheran ground. 1 

1 Miiller, in the "Historical Intro dticti on" to his edition of the Symbolical 
Books, says, " The Church, then, does not wish to ascribe to her Symbols immut- 
able authority ; she admits that some one might discover a defect in them; she 
finds in them merely a temporary expression of her faith ; she reserves to herself 



DISCUSSION. I97 

But we would like to ask Dr. Seiss a plain question. It is very 
ungracious, and imposes an unpleasant task, to say a word to mar 
the effect of the very forcible and eloquent address to which we 
have just listened To most of it we could say yea and amen. We 
believe that as a defence of the great Reformation against the accu- 
sations of Rome and certain Anglicans, it was triumphant. The 
Lutheran Church cannot be justly charged with schism in separating 
from Rome. We believe that before men and angels and God, she 
stands fully justified in her separate, distinct existence. She is not 
in the Roman Catholic Church because she could not remain there. 
She was thrust out, and obedience to conscience and the Word of 
God, demanded she should no longer submit to corruption and 
tyranny. We can endorse all that was said on this point thus far. 

We can go a step further. We hold that the Augsburg Confes- 
sion is truly a catholic and liberal Confession ; and interpreted as 
it was by its author, there would have been little excuse for the ex- 
istence and multiplication of other Creeds and other denomina- 
tions. With the due exercise of charity, the Augsburg Confession 
might have furnished the basis of a united Protestantism, as it has 
since been confessed by different nationalities and different denom- 
inations. 

But the question I desire to ask is this : Has not the Lutheran 
Church, by the adoption of a very extended confessional system, 
including explanations of disputed points among evangelical Chris- 
tians, and making a subscription to this system a condition of re- 



expressly the privilege of improving them, of completing or of extending, as 
occasional necessity requires." Any number of authorities might be cited to 
the same purpose. It is a lame attempt to meet the plain question, to set up the 
plea that for an individual to object to the infallibility of the Confession, is to 
claim infallibility for himself, and to set up his individual infallibility against 
the infallibility of the Church. On this principle, no member of the Church of 
Rome would ever doubt the Papal infallibility— for to do so would be to assert 
his own. 



I98 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

maining in the Church, furnished other denominations a good and 
sufficient excuse for their separate organizations ? Cannot other 
denominations plead the same excuse in justification for their exist- 
ence outside of the Lutheran Church, that Lutherans plead against 
Rome ? True, they may not have been thrust out, but was not 
their remaining in made impossible, except at the sacrifice of con- 
scientious convictions of truth and duty ? 

We do not wish to quibble or to raise doubtful questions, but to 
deal with plain facts. Take as an illustration the action of the Lu- 
theran Church in 1580, in adopting the entire Book of Concord. 
There were thousands and tens of thousands then and since, in and 
out of the Lutheran Church, who could not and would not sub- 
scribe this Book. There have been venerable men in the Minister- 
ium of Pennsylvania, whose names have been mentioned with honor 
as Lutherans on the floor of this Diet, who have declared them- 
selves willing to endure any sufferings rather than subscribe to 
everything in these Symbolical Books. There are things there which 
do not constitute any part of genuine Catholic Lutheranism, and yet 
which have been imposed, at some times and in some places, as a 
condition of remaining in the Lutheran Church. It cannot and 
will not be questioned in this Diet, that thousands and tens of thou- 
sands of as learned, honest, and godly men, as the Church has ever 
known in any age, have not found themselves able to accept the 
peculiarities of the Lutheran faith. It would be useless to call the 
roll of illustrious scholars, learned divines, devoted missionaries, 
and self-sacrificing laborers in every department, who have proved 
their sincerity and devotion to the cause of Christ, by evidence 
which challenges our admiration. No man can, without an audacity 
of which few are possessed, deny the intelligence, or learning, or 
piety, or sincerity, of the hosts of great and good men in the other 
denominations of Christendom. This is not even disputed by the 
most zealous advocates of Lutheranism. 

Now, I ask if the exclusion of these men from the Lutheran 



DISCUSSION. I99 

Church does not give them the same ground for a separate denom- 
inational existence, that we claim for ourselves? Cannot they, 
before men, and angels and God, justify themselves for not being 
in the Lutheran Church? Have we any right to set up a rule that 
excludes them, and then to condemn them because they do not 
choose to do violence to their consciences, and profess what they 
cannot believe? It is egregious trifling to say that they were not 
compelled to take a position outside of the Lutheran Church. If 
we admit their honesty, they simply acted as honest and God-fear- 
ing men. They have done what every man's conscience must ap- 
prove. And they have not been left without evidence of favor and 
approval from above. 

I have asked this question because it goes directly to the heart of 
this matter of denominationalism. It demands to know what share 
we have in this work, and whether the course some insist on as a 
test of genuine Lutheranism, is not fraught with all the evils of 
division and schism in the Lutheran Church and in the Church of 
Christ ? 

REMARKS OF REV. C. P. KRAUTH, D. D., LL. D. {General Council.) 

Dr. Krauth said that the point made by Dr. Schaeffer, as against 
the position taken by Dr. Brown, is very important. Dr. Brown 
has totally failed to mark the real question, which is not, whether 
the Lutheran Church is infallible, for all admit that she is not, but 
whether she has in fact failed. An infallible rule does not make in- 
fallible interpreters, but it protects those who use it aright, from fail- 
ure. It is not the infallibility of men, but the power of God's 
Word to produce clear, unmistaken convictions on the part of those 
who use it as it directs, on which we rest our claim that the Church 
may reach truth without any intermingling of error in faith; and by 
the comparison of our confessions with this Word, and by the con- 
formity with the Word thus established, we reach the conclusion that 
she has not erred. Infallibility and failure are not the only suppo- 



200 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

sitions possible. There is a third supposition — that though there be 
fallibility, there has not been actual failure. 

In the minute method of marking wherein the infallibility of the 
original text consists, it might consistently have been added that the 
Rule of Faith is the Word, as written in the manuscripts of the sacred 
penmen. These manuscripts have vanished for ages. No copies 
known to us approach them by several centuries. The Word as the 
Holy Spirit gave it is infallible, but the transcribers, the printers, the 
editors, are not. In Dr. Brown's mode of construction we have not, 
in fact, an infallible rule of faith, but only fallible manuscripts of it, 
no two of which absolutely agree. Nor does he seem to realize the 
real dishonor put in terms of honor on the Word, which, infallible 
itself, is either the generator of constant failures, or fails, of neces- 
sity, to prevent them. That is an empty vine which brings forth 
fruit only for itself. It is, indeed, an extraordinary mode of de- 
fending the sufficiency of the Word, a book which, according to 
him, has an infallible sense, in which those who use it are infalli- 
bly mistaken, or at least can never be sure they are right, inasmuch 
as they are fallible themselves. Our Church holds that the very ob- 
ject of this infallible book, is to correct and to prevent the errors 
into which fallible men fall without it. It is an infallible book, 
meant to prevent failures. And as a rule is actualized only as men 
take its meaning into their minds and hearts, the truth infallible as 
it lies in the Word, is transmuted into possible error in the very 
act of reception by fallible man, alike in reading the originals, when 
he translates it himself, or in reading the translations of others. 
It is a view which annihilates all possibility of an assured faith, and 
is as conclusive against the certitude of the doctrines which Dr. 
Brown considers necessary, as against those he would leave open. It 
leaves all opinions, and allows of no faith. 

Dr. Brown seems to confound those changes in creeds which am- 
plify, and defend, and state more felicitously the faith, to prevent 
change in it or misunderstanding of it, with those whose object 



DISCUSSION. 201 

would be to deny faith once confessed. The faith confessed at 
Augsburg was fixed before the Diet was called. The abstract in the 
XVII Articles of Luther, which was laid as the basis of the doctrinal 
part of it, sets forth in all respects the same faith. All the labor of 
the Confession was directed to perfecting -not the doctrine, for 
that was fixed — but the form. Melanchthon was so great a precisian 
in style that he touched and retouched everything to the time of 
his death. There is no impossibility and no difficulty in determin- 
ing what is the " true original Augsburg Confession," in any sense 
in which we are practically interested in it as a standard. In the 
Latin, there is the first edition of 1530, edited by Melanchthon him- 
self, while the Diet was still sitting, and now incorporated in all 
editions of the Book of Concord. In German we have the first 
edition of the same year, edited by Melanchthon during the sitting 
of the Diet. There are nine known manuscripts of the Latin and 
twelve of the German, preserved in the archives of the Lutheran 
States and cities. The edition of the German in the Book of Con- 
cord, is from the Mentz copy in the Protocol of the Empire. Twenty- 
one manuscripts, seven unauthorized editions, one edition in each 
language by Melanchthon himself, all of the year 1530, are collated, 
and thus in the hands of scholars, to settle the precise text of the 
Augsburg Confession. We can ask with far more force, which 
among the various editions of the Greek New Testament is the true 
original New Testament? We have editions varying by many thou- 
sands of stylistic minutenesses, and we can only approximate the or- 
iginal text, which is the perfect, infallible Rule of faith. And yet one 
ignorant of the facts might suppose that we, who have no practical 
difficulty whatever about the Biblical text, are quite at sea about the 
Augsburg Confession, and that however willing we might be to ac- 
cept it, no man can tell us where it is, or what it is; when in fact 
there is scarcely a great document of equal antiquity whose text we 
can settle by so many direct vouchers. We know that the faith of 
the Rule is so inwrought in the Rule, that the mere textual differ- 
ences do not affect the result. The faith of the New Testament is 
14 



202 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

the same in the Sinaitic Uncial and the latest Cursives, in the first of 
Erasmus, and the last of Teschendorf. And the faith of the Augs- 
burg Confession is the same in every edition, Latin and German, 
which pretends to be the Confession as actually read June 25th, 
1530. The deliberate changes or corruption of either the Rule or 
the Confession are very different, and when we see evidences of them, 
we should at once throw aside the whole book, whether it pretends 
to be Scripture or Confession. . 

Sectarianism, not satisfied with open warfare against our Church, 
endangered it yet more for political reasons, by pretences of con- 
formity with the Augsburg Confession as ' ' interpreted by its author," 
meaning Melanchthon, who yet was not its author in any respect 
which gave him a right to change it, and whose interpretation of the 
meaning of the Confession when in 1530 he composed it, differed in 
no respect from that of Luther. The meaning of the Augsburg Con- 
fession is that which those, who presented it in 1530 then designed, 
it to express ; and any change from that meaning, by whomsoever 
made, is not an interpretation of the Confession, but a perversion 
of it. 

The Formula of Concord grew out of the struggle of the Lutheran 
Church for her very life. So far from originating the divisions in Prot- 
estant Christendom, it came after the organization of all.the Reformed 
Churches. It was not at Augsburg to frighten the Zwinglians and 
Tetrapolitans from union with us in 1530. The Basel Confession of 
1534, the Helvetic of 1536, the Zurich of 1545, the Genevan Cat- 
echism of 1 5 41, the Zurich Consensus of 1549, the French Confes- 
sion of 1559, the Confession of the Netherlands of 1561, the Scotch 
of 1568, the Heidelberg Catechism of 1562, the Second Helvetic of 
1566, the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England of 1562 — 
surely these, and the Churches which stood under them, did not owe 
their existence to the Formula of Concord, which did not appear 
till 1580. The doctrinal objections to the Formula of Concord 
are at their root always objections to the Augsburg Confession, as 



DISCUSSION. 203 

an intelligent ex animo reception of the Augsburg Confession is at 
its root always a virtual reception of the Formula of Concord. The 
Formula of Concord originated no sects. It saved the Lutheran 
Church and the Reformation from being swamped by them. 

There is an extraordinary want of consistency in the opponents 
of the Book of Concord. Sometimes they talk as if the Lutheran 
Church were so rigidly bound to the Augsburg Confession exclu- 
sively, that the recognition of anything beside would be inconsistent. 
Yet when it suits them they claim the largest liberty for the Church 
to alter, cut down, add to, substitute — an illimitable right to make 
and change creeds. They make a fetich of the Augsburg Confes- 
sion, idolizing it (in phrase) one day, and claiming the next day the 
right to a new fetich, whenever they want it, and to make any 
changes they please in the old one ; and this, they tell us, is the Lu- 
theran position in regard to our Church creeds. The denial of this 
they represent as Symbolism, the putting of the creed on the level 
of Scripture. But in this whole matter they start with confounding 
very distinct things— the faith itself, the divine doctrine, and the 
particular confessions of it in their individual style and method. 
A pure Church can have but one faith ; that faith makes her pure ; 
losing it she loses her purity, she loses herself; a pure faith once is 
a pure faith forever. The ages cannot touch it, nor change it. The 
Giurch may express that faith with greater clearness ; she may with- 
draw what is less full, and substitute what is more full, or may add 
without withdrawing. She may give officially an explanation of a 
creed, to prevent mistake or correct misstatement, but the faith itself 
she cannot change. The faith is older than the creed. The pure 
creed is begotten of the pure faith. As the faith has life in itself, it 
gives to the creed to have life in itself. Hence a true creed once, 
is a true creed forever, and the Church can only substitute another 
for it, to express the faith of the old creed in a more perfect form. 
The new pure creed is then not the death of the old, but its resur- 
rection — its glorification. But old or new, the true creed is not the 



204 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

rival of the Scriptures. All its glory is secondary and derivative. 
But because the Word is unmixed truth, the Confession, though 
men's hands have made it, may lift something which is most surely 
from that ocean and of it. The purest creed is not the ocean ; it is 
but a golden bowl; but that which fills it comes from the ocean, and 
shares in the purity of its source. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. A. SEISS, D. D. {General Council.) 

Dr. Seiss said that he had no wish to protract the discussion, and 
would not enter upon the points suggested. He would only remark, 
respecting the questions of Dr. Brown, that if the several things 
stated in the Essay were carefully considered together, especially the 
statements in the concluding sections, he thought a sufficient answer, 
so far as he was concerned, could readily be deduced. He had 
given it as his belief that there were times and places in the general 
Lutheran household, in which attitudes were assumed which he did 
not undertake to justify, and exhibitions made, in opposite direc- 
tions, which he considered misrepresentations. If the Lutheran 
cause were to be judged and rated after these, there would be more 
show for certain dissenting opponents and separatistic antagonisms. 
He had reasoned on the inner right of the thing, and fully admitted 
the modifying force of external facts and circumstances in some 
cases. The weaknesses of men are always present, and often have 
something of an excusing influence, even in unjustifiable proceed- 
ings; but temporary and provisional excusableness, is a differ- 
ent matter from a thorough, permanent, and justifiable principle. 
Many things may be, for the time and under the circumstances, 
excused, which in principle and right, especially if persevered 
in when the special stress has disappeared, cannot be justified, 
and are quite without any solid basis on which to rest. The 
Lutheran severance from Rome, so far as respected the Luth- 
erans, was, and still is, fully justifiable, on the broadest and 
deepest principles of faith and righteousness; but the Lutheran 



DISCUSSION. 205 

churches, as a whole, or in any way to make them unitedly 
responsible, have never given cause for antagonizing communions, 
except in so far as those communions take from or add to the one 
only faith of the true Catholic Church. Adopting that with Luth- 
erans, people become Lutherans, and are at fault for maintaining 
church opposition to Lutherans • and in so far as people do not hold 
that faith with Lutherans, they are at fault as Christians, and are 
really errorists and sects, who elect to abide by their own opinions 
against the true Catholic Church. That they do it in honest sincerity, 
not rightly understanding what they do, may modify our judgment 
of their guilt, but not our judgment of their error. 



FIFTH SESSION. 



December 29TH, 2:30 p. m. 
Prayer by Rev. A. M. Whetstone, of Somerset. The eighth 
paper was then read. 

THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE AUGSBURG 
CONFESSION. 

BY REV. F. W. CONRAD, D. D., PHILADELPHIA. 

IN the ongoing of Providence and under the peculiar exigencies 
that have arisen in the Christian Church, creeds or confessions 
of faith have been originated, promulgated and adopted, by individ- 
uals, churches, cities, states and countries. These confessions are 
numerous, and differ from each other in their length, doctrinal 
statements, and ecclesiastical principles. These differences consti- 
tute the characteristics by which they are distinguished from each 
other, and furnish at the same time the basis for their division into 
general and particular classes. Some of these confessions are, 
however, so peculiarly constituted, that they form a class by them- 
selves, and among such the Augsburg Confession stands pre-emi- 
nent. This will, we trust, become manifest from its characteristics, 
which we propose to present for your consideration, as the subject 
assigned us on this occasion. 

In order, however, to understand the characteristics of the Augs- 
burg Confession, it will be necessary to consider the character of 
the persons who took part in its formation, as well as the circum- 
stances and influences under which it originated. The work to be 
accomplished was a momentous one. No general creed had been 
adopted for a thousand years. The historic sense of the CEcumeni- 
cal creeds had been perverted, and they were made to bear wit- 
ness to error. The exigencies of the Church called for the origina- 
tion of a creed adapted to the crisis that had arisen in her history. 
And the Confessors of Augsburg were raised up and called by the 
Providence of God to bear witness to the truth, through the prepa- 
ration and presentation of their great Confession. 

(206) 



DR. CONRAD S ESSAY. 2C>7 

A literary production receives its peculiarities from the ideal of 
its composer, and, in like manner, did the Augsburg Confession re- 
ceive its characteristics from the theological opinions, the ecclesias- 
tical principles, and the personal traits of character of its authors 
and signers. Our limits constrain us, however, to confine ourselves 
to a simple enumeration of the principal traits of character exhibited 
by the Confessors. They were distinguished by fervent piety, by 
heroic, adherence to truth, by conscientious fidelity to their convic- 
tions, by a spirit of toleration, by moderate views respecting 
churchliness, and by sincere devotion to the preservation of the 
unity of the Church. In view of the significance and relative im- 
portance of the last-mentioned trait, we shall devote a little space 
to its presentation. 

The Confessors accepted the articles of the (Ecumenical creeds, 
declaring the existence and perpetuity of one holy catholic Church, 
consisting of the "body of true believers in all parts of the world, 
who have but one gospel, one Christ, the same Baptism and Holy 
Supper, and who are»ruled by one Holy Spirit, although they have 
different ceremonies." In this Church they were born, baptized 
and confirmed, and in it they desired to live, labor and die. Dis- 
sensions had occurred in it ; and they came to Augsburg to consult 
about the best manner of suppressing them. They foresaw the 
evils of schism, and labored to heal the breaches of Zion. They 
anticipated and deplored the consequences of separation, and left 
no means untried, consistent with the will of God and the dictates 
of conscience, to prevent it. They professed true loyalty to Christ, 
and claimed the rights conferred upon all believers by the Word of 
God. They were not schismatics nor separatists, but advocates of 
Christian and ecclesiastical union. They declared that they had 
neither formed a new sect nor left the Church, and protested, 
through their Confession, that they could not justly be condemned 
as errorists, nor excluded from the communion of the Holy Catho- 
lic Church. They were not ready to strike a truce with error, and 
extend the hand of fellowship to heretics. They realized the 
necessity as well as the duty of tolerating differences of opinion on 
minor points, and their Confession itself presents the basis upon 
which, in their judgment, church fellowship and co-operation 
might be maintained. Indeed, to prevent the dismemberment of 
the Catholic and schism in the Evangelical Church, was the object 



208 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

of all their conferences and diets, colloquies and discussions with 
the Romanists in the earlier, and with their fellow Protestants in 
the later, periods of the Reformation. While, therefore, we are 
called upon to give due weight to the authority of the Confessors of 
Augsburg, we must not forget that they were human, possessed of 
like passions with ourselves, encompassed with peculiar temptations, 
perplexed with formidable difficulties, and liable to err in judgment, 
and to make mistakes in deciding the numerous and diversified 
questions submitted to them. Fallible themselves, human fallibility 
must necessarily attach to their Confession ; but distinguished by 
the traits of character just enumerated, and directed by the Word, 
Spirit and Providence of God, they were delivered from the delu- 
sions of Romish error, and led to the discovery of " the truth as it 
is in Jesus," and to the confession of " the faith once delivered to 
the saints." 

The Augsburg Confession did not, like Jonah's gourd, spring up 
in a night, but was the growth of an age. It appeared in the blade 
at Marburg, developed the stalk at Swabach aaid Torgau, and bore 
the full corn at Augsburg. It was not the work of a single individual, 
but the product of the joint efforts and common counsels of many 
The part taken in its preparation by some was more, and that of 
others less conspicuous and influential. 

Luther was the chief among the Confessors. His leadership was 
recognized, and his influence was everywhere manifest in the work 
of the Reformation. This was strikingly illustrated at Augsburg. 
For personal and political reasons he remained at Coburg, but 
although absent from Augsburg in body, he was, nevertheless, pres- 
ent in spirit. He had written the Marburg, and taken the 
principal part in the preparation of the Swabach and Torgau 
articles, which served Melanchthon as a basis and model in the 
arrangement and composition of the Confession. Communication 
was established by couriers, between Coburg and Augsburg, and a 
correspondence conducted between Luther, Melanchthon and the 
Elector John, of Saxony. His opinions and advice were thus 
sought and given, in the determination of some of the perplex- 
ing questions submitted to the Confessors before and during the ses- 
sions of the Diet. On the nth of May, the Confession itself, in 
the first draft of its completed form, was sent to him by the Elector, 
accompanied with a letter requesting him to give it a thorough ex- 



DR. CONRAD S ESSAY. 209 

animation and revision, and to return it with such changes and addi- 
tions as he thought proper to make. He sent it back on the 15 th 
of May, with the statement that he had read it from beginning 
to end, that it pleased him exceedingly well, and that he had made 
no changes in it because he did not know how he could improve it. 

From the time the Confession was first sent to Luther on the nth 
of May, until the time of its presentation to the Emperor on the 
25th of June, it underwent many and various changes, and appeared 
in different forms of completeness in the successive stages of its 
composition. And in this improved form it was sent to Luther be- 
tween the 2 2d of May and the 2d of June, and again received his 
unqualified approval. 1 

Melanchthon was the theologian of the Reformation and the 
teacher of Germany. He was selected by common consent to pre- 

1 The correctness of this statement was called into question at the Diet, and 
the authority on which it was based called for. We accordingly refer to the 
statements made by Melanchthon in his letter to Luther of May 22, and in the 
Preface to his Body of Christian Doctrine, and to Luther's letter to Melanch- 
thon of June 3, as quoted by Dr. Krauth in his 'Conservative Reformation.' 

According to the statement made above, the Augsburg Confession in the first 
draft of its completed form, left the hands of Luther on the 15th of May. On 
the 22d of May, Melanchthon wrote to Luther : " In the Apology, we daily 
change many things. * * * * * * I wish you would run over the Ar- 
ticles of Faith : if you think there is no defect in them, we will treat of the 
other points as we best may." Con. Ref., p. 227. 

On the 3d of June, Luther wrote to Melanchthon : " I yesterday (June 2) re- 
read your Apology entire, with care, and it pleases me exceedingly." lb., p. 234. 

In giving a history of the Augsburg Confession, in the Preface to his Body of 
Christian Doctrine, Melanchthon refers to the preparation and presentation of 
the complete form of the Confession as follows : 

1. "I brought together the principal points of the Confession, embracing 
pretty nearly the sum of the doctrines of our Churches." 

2. " I assumed nothing to myself, for in the presence of the Princes and 
other officials, and of the preachers, it was discussed and determined upon in 
regular course, sentence by sentence." 

3. " The complete form of the Confession was subsequently sent to Luther, 
who wrote lo the Princes, that he had read the Confession and approved it." 

4. u After this, before the Emperor Charles, in a great assemblage of the 
Princes, this Confession was read." lb., p. 233. 

In support of the truth of these statements, he added : " That these things 
were so done, the Princes, and other learned and honest men, yet living, well 
remember." 



210 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

pare the declaration of the Protestants. For the accomplishment of 
t-his work, he was eminently qualified. He entered upon it with a 
realizing sense of its responsibilities, and under the divine guidance 
composed the great Confession. This was his symbolical master- 
piece. In its style, statements and discussions, it bears the marks 
of his taste, learning and literary skill, and in its tone and spirit, it 
is pervaded by his constitutional amiability and kindness, as well as 
by his Christian moderation, forbearance and catholicity. 

It is manifest, therefore, that the part taken by Melanchthon, in 
the preparation of the Augsburg Confession, was no less significant 
and valuable than that contributed by Luther. With respect to its 
matter, its authorship may be ascribed to Luther ; determined by its 
form, it must be accredited to Melanchthon. It may, therefore, be 
justly divided between them — Melanchthon fashioned its body, 
Luther imparted to it its confessional soul. 

The Evangelical Princes, with their councillors and theologians, 
were associated with Melanchthon, as representatives of the Protestant 
cause, and took a prominent part in the deliberations of the Protest- 
ants and the proceedings of the Diet. In the preparation of the 
Confession, the most difficult questions to be determined were not 
what doctrines must be declared, and what abuses ought to be cor- 
rected, but in what form shall these doctrines be stated, and 
in what manner shall these abuses be corrected. In this most 
difficult part of his task, Melanchthon did not rely upon his own 
judgment and that of Luther, but availed himself of the coun- 
sel and advice of his fellow Confessors. Although they were not 
equal in theological attainments and Biblical knowledge to Luther 
and Melanchthon, their individual counsels and collective judgment 
were sought, and proved of great value in deciding the different 
questions that arose during the preparation of the Confession. 

From the representations just made, the respective parts taken by 
the several Confessors in the origination of the Confession may be 
determined. They were not, however, called upon to accomplish 
their work in ordinary times, untrammeled by diverse considera- 
tions, and unaffected by conflicting influences. But as the plant 
receives its peculiar properties from the formative influences of the 
germ of its particular species, so did the Augsburg Confession re- 
ceive its distinguishing characteristics, through the numerous and 
diversified influences exerted upon the Confessors during the succes- 



DR. CONRAD S ESSAY. 2 I I 

sive stages of its preparation. And to the presentation of the 
sources and character of these moulding influences, we now desire to 
call attention. 

The Catholic princes, deputies, ambassadors and theologians, con- 
stituted the other prominent party at the Diet of Augsburg. Some 
of the theologians were distinguished for their theological attain- 
ments, others for their dialectic skill, others for their personal mag- 
netism, and all alike for their devotion to the dogmas and usages of 
the Romish Church. The princes and deputies exerted a political, 
and the theologians an ecclesiastical influence upon the Emperor, 
as well as a corresponding influence upon the Protestant princes, 
councillors and theologians, in their consultations with them. 

Zwingle, although not personally present, nevertheless made him • 
self felt at Augsburg. He had, upon his own judgment, prepared 
and sent a confession to the Emperor. It set forth his views in ex- 
plicit terms, but its form of expression was not happy, and its tone 
was rather repulsive than conciliatory. It lacked both prudence and 
moderation, and proved untimely and prejudicial to the cause of 
the Protestants. 

There were ten cities represented at the Diet, two of which signed 
the Confession before its presentation, and four afterwards. The 
four remaining cities were Strasburg, Memmingen, Costnitz and 
Lindau. They were represented by Bucer and Capito. They agreed 
with the statements of the Confession on all points except those 
made in the Tenth Article ; yet they did not, on the other hand, agree 
with the representations made on the subject of the Real Presence 
with Zwingle in his confession. They, therefore, had one prepared 
by Bucer, with the assistance of Capito and Hedio, and signed it as 
their own. It is known as the Tetrapolitana, the confession of the 
four cities, and it was presented to the Emperor on the nth of July. 

Charles V. did not fully comprehend the character of the religious 
agitations which were convulsing the empire. The mighty events 
of the previous decade seem to have taught him but little, and he 
appeared at Augsburg the same haughty tyrant and pliant vassal 
of the Church of Rome, as he proved himself to be by the issue of 
the Edict of Worms. He claimed, as Emperor, to be not only the 
Supreme Sovereign of the State, but also the Ruler of the Church. 
His legitimate authority in civil affairs the Protestants recognized ; 
his right to decide ecclesiastical questions they denied. He presided 



212 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

at the Diet of the Empire. He was biased in favor of the Roman- 
ists, and prejudiced against the Protestants. While, therefore, the 
Protestants realized that the Emperor could not preside as an impar- 
tial judge between them and the Romanists, they, nevertheless, felt 
the influence he exerted upon the Diet, and duly considered it in 
the preparation of their Confession. 

The object of the Diet, and the best means of attaining it„as set 
forth in the call of the Emperor, and explained in the preface to the 
Confession by Chancellor Briick, must also be considered. This 
was to harmonize and settle divergent opinions, to heal religious 
dissensions, to restore concord, and to establish ecclesiastical fellow- 
ship in the one Christian Church. The methods suggested for attain- 
ing these ends were a consultation, in which the opinions of the con- 
tending parties might be mutually expressed, explained and considered 
with moderation, mildness and affection among themselves,in the pres- 
ence of the Emperor: and erroneous opinions abandoned or corrected, 
and an agreement secured, so far as it could be honorably done, be- 
tween the Protestants and Catholics. The ultimate object of the 
Diet, thus set forth, exerted a decided influence upon the Confessors 
of Augsburg, and was kept constantly in view in the preparation of 
their Confession. 

Besides the various influences exerted by the individuals and 
parties just named upon the Confessors, and through them upon 
the matter and form of their Confession, others of a more general char- 
acter ought not to be overlooked. The political agitation of the Em- 
pire consequent upon the occurrence of war, the threatening aspects 
of the invasion by the Turks, the dissensions and controversies that 
had arisen in the Church between the Protestants and Romanists, and 
the differences between the Protestants themselves, must all be taken 
into consideration and their respective bearings determined. The exi- 
gencies that had arisen, in both Church and State, became invested 
with the force of circumstances and the pressure of the times, and 
exerted a corresponding influence upon the opinions, judgment and 
decisions of all persons and parties concerned in the deliberations of 
Augsburg To these influences the Confessors were constantly ex- 
posed, and under their moulding power their Confession received its 
distinguishing characteristics. 

But in addition to all these influences, the Confessors were 
subjected to various others which were both powerful and perplex- 



DR. CONRAD S ESSAY. 2 I 3 

ing. Some of them were temporary and others more perma- 
nent in their character, and the Confessors can never be said to 
have been altogether exempt from their pressure. And it is only 
by a careful consideration of all these influences and circumstances, 
which were more or less powerful at different times during the Diet, 
that the changes of sentiment and differences of doctrinal statement 
made by the Confessors before, after and during the Diet, can be 
properly understood. A few illustrations of this we subjoin. 

At Augsburg, the condemnatory clause of the Tenth Article of the 
Confession (" the opposite doctrine is therefore rejected") was aimed 
at the doctrine on the Lord's Supper held by the Swiss ; and yet 
Philip, the Landgrave of Hesse, who sympathized with the Zwin- 
glian view, and objected to that set forth in the Tenth Article, was 
not only permitted but urged to sign the Confession. 

At Marburg, Melanchthon met Bucer in conference ; at Augs - 
burg, he rejected all his overtures for a personal meeting ; but at 
Cassel, in 1534, he engaged cordially in a religious consultation 
with him, which resulted in a better understanding between them, 
and in inducing the Strasburg divines to teach according to the 
Augsburg Confession. 

In 1530, Melanchthon so stated the doctrine of the Real Presence 
in the Tenth Article, that the Romanists professed to approve of it, 
and the Swiss objected to it; in 1540, Melanchthon so changed 
the Tenth Article of the Confession, that the Swiss approved of it 
and the Romanists objected to it. 2 

In 1530, the Evangelical Princes adopted the original Augsburg 

2 The tenth article of the edition of 1530 reads thus: "Concerning the 
Lord's Supper, they teach that the body and blood of Christ are truly present 
and distributed to those who eat in the Lord's Supper; and they reject those 
who teach otherwise." In the edition of 1540, it reads thus : " Concerning the 
Lord's Supper, they teach that with the bread and wine, the body and blood of 
Christ are truly exhibited to those who eat in the Lord's Supper." But by 
making these changes in the phraseology of the Tenth Article, Melanchthon did 
not intend to change the doctrine set forth in it. He never adopted either the 
views of Zvvingle or Calvin on the Lord's Supper but adhered to those of Luther 
until his death. He did, however, change his opinions concerning the rela- 
tive importance of the difference between them, as well as the real character 
of both the Zwinglian and Calvinistic view of the Lord's Supper. He no 
longer regarded the difference as fundamental, and as forming a justifiable bar 
to Christian recognition and ecclesiastical fellowship. 



214 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Confession, and in their subsequent conferences with the Romanists 
at Worms and other places, made Melanchthon's edition of it the 
basis of their negotiations; after 1540, the Protestants made Me- 
lanchthon's edition of 1540 (the Variata) the basis of similar con- 
ferences with the Catholics ; and in 1561, at Naumburg, the Evan- 
gelical Princes formally adopted both the altered and the unaltered 
edition of the Confession, and thereby recognized the substantial 
identity of their doctrinal statements, as well as the equality of their 
confessional significance and authority. 

During the Diet of Augsburg, Bucer, convinced of the import- 
ance of securing a union among the Protestants, wrote to Luther, 
and afterwards visited him at Coburg; but Luther refused to answer 
his letter, and gave him little encouragement in his efforts to 
harmonize the differences between him and the Swiss; yet, under 
different circumstances, Luther subsequently wrote to Bucer, and 
expressed his views as follows : "I wish that this schism were put an 
end to, even if I had to give my life for it three times over, because 
I see how necessary your fellowship is for us, and how much incon- 
venience this disunion has occasioned to the Gospel, and still occa- 
sions ; so that I am convinced that all the gates of hell, the Papacy, 
the Turk, the whole world, the flesh, and whatever evil thing there 
is, would not have been able to injure the Gospel so much, if we 
had remained at one." 

In 1529, Luther disapproved the holding of the Marburg Confer- 
ence with the Swiss, in the interest of union, and took part in it 
reluctantly ; in 1536, he himself proposed the holding of the conven- 
vention, for the promotion of Protestant union, at Wittenberg, which 
resulted in the adoption of the so-called Wittenberg Formula Con- 
cordiae. In view of the modified positions set forth in the Concordia, 
Dorner says it "may, therefore, be regarded as a document which 
shows beforehand that a stand in the doctrine of the Supper, such as 
became afterwards, through Calvin, the ruling one in the Reformed 
churches, was acknowledged even by Luther himself to be one with 
which brotherly communion was Christianly lawful. And this histori- 
cal judgment is not altered by the fact that seven years afterwards 
Luther suddenly broke out again in his Kleine Bekenntniss vom 
Abendmahl in violent ebullition against the Swiss, quite unexpectedly 
to all, except those who were envious of and hated Melanchthon, 
and who had goaded Luther on to this." 



DR. CONRAD S ESSAY. 215 

At Marburg, Luther, on the third day of the Conference, refused 
the proffered hand of Zwingle, and although he extended his hand 
to Zwingle on the fourth day, he nevertheless refused to acknowledge 
the Swiss as brethren ; yet, after the Wittenberg Concord, he recog- 
nized and called the Swiss "our dear brethren in the Lord," and in 
answering a letter of inquiry addressed to him, concerning his views 
on the spiritual enjoyment of the body and blood of Christ, in the 
Lord's Supper, expressed his views in a letter to the Zurichers as fol- 
lows : "We leave it in the hands of Omnipotence, how the body and 
blood of Christ are given us in the Supper. Where we have not 
entirely come to an understanding on this, it is best that we be 
friendly towards one another, and always expect the best of one 
another, until the mire and troubled water settle." In quoting the 
above testimony, Dorner says : "From this it is evident how Luther 
regards it as indispensable that the body and blood of Christ are 
given us in the Supper, but distinguishes from this the how and 
the connection with the elements," and consequently " the peace 
established between the two parties (at Wittenberg) was recognized to 
be rightful, if there was agreement in the chief matter, in the what?'" 1 

Having thus presented to our view the men who formed, and 
the circumstances and influences under which they formed and 
adopted the Augsburg Confession, we are prepared, in some measure, 
to consider and appreciate the characteristics of the great symbol of 
evangelical doctrine, which, after many difficulties, they completed 
and submitted to the Emperor, Charles V., at Augsburg, and to the 
judgment of the Christian world. 

I. THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION IS PROTESTANT. 

Charles V., the Emperor of Germany, was a haughty Spaniard, 
an imperious despot, and a religious persecutor. In 15 21 he issued 
the Edict of Worms prepared by Aleander, the Pope's Nuncio, in 
which Luther is charged with blasphemy and heresy ; with assailing 
the Church, defying all authority, destroying the Christian faith, 
and inciting to revolt, schism, war, murder, theft and incendiarism. 
He is declared to be " no man, but Satan, in the form of a man in 
a monk's hood; a madman, possessed of the devil." He was de- 
clared an outlaw, his followers placed under the ban of the empire, 
his writings ordered to be burned, and all efforts to propagate his 
doctrines, and make proselytes to his cause, forbidden as a crime, 



2l6 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

subject to heavy penalties. The Edict of the first Diet of Spire 
(1526) repealed that of Worms, and granted to each State full lib- 
erty in religious matters. At the second Diet of Spire (1529) the 
Edict of the first was peremptorily repealed by Charles V., thereby 
depriving the disciples of Luther of religious liberty, exposing them 
to political disabilities and punishment, and restricting the promul- 
gation of the Gospel. Unprepared for such a breach of faith, the 
Evangelical Princes were thunderstruck, and retired to an adjoining 
chamber for consultation. After due consideration, they came to 
the unanimous conclusion to reject the decree passed by the major- 
ity of the States and sanctioned by the Emperor, and to appeal to 
the decisions of a general council. They accordingly drew up a 
declaration, and headed by John, Elector of Saxony, presented their 
world-renowned Protest to the assembled Diet. From this Protest 
the followers of Luther were subsequently called Protestants. This 
Protest contains the politico-religious principles of Protestantism. 
It asserts the right of private judgment, the prerogatives of con- 
science, and the supreme authority of the Word of God ; and protests 
against the claim of the civil power to regulate matters of religion, 
as well as against the arbitrary power of the Church to determine 
matters of faith. 

The Augsburg Confession is a legitimate development of the Pro- 
test of Spire. Indeed, the Protestants of Spire were also the Con- 
fessors of Augsburg. The religious authority claimed over them 
by the Emperor at Spire, they repudiated before his face at Augs- 
burg ; the religious rights denied them at Spire, they asserted at 
Augsburg ; and the principles contained in their Protest, they ampli- 
fied and reiterated in their Confession. It may, therefore, be justly 
regarded, not only as the Confession of Faith of the Evangelical 
Princes, but also as their completed Protest against the usurpations 
of the State and the despotism of the Romish Church. 

The term Protestant, in its strictly historic sense, is restricted 
to the subjects involved in civil and religious liberty. In its theo- 
logico-confessional sense, it designates the distinguishing differences 
in doctrine and usages between the Reformers and the Romanists. 
The object of the Confessors of Augsburg was to set forth these dif- 
ferences in their Confession. The doctrinal differences embrace the 
doctrine of justification by faith, new obedience, the office of the 
ministry, the real presence, the efficacy of the sacraments, auricular 



DR. CONRAD S ESSAY. 2 1 7 

confession, repentance, good works, ecclesiastical rites, civil govern- 
ment, the Christian Church, the worship of saints, and the exclusive 
mediatorship of Jesus Christ. The ceremonial and practical differ- 
ences include the communion in one kind, the celibacy of the priests, 
the mass, confession, human traditions, monastic vows, church power, 
and the jurisdiction of the bishops. 

These distinguishing differences between Protestantism and Ro- 
manism take up the greater part of the entire Confession, and 
include not only the principles of Protestantism, in a politico-eccle- 
siastical sense, but also its doctrines, ecclesiastical principles and 
ceremonial usages, in its theologico-confessional sense. Thus, the 
Augsburg Confession defined and established the principles of Pro- 
testantism, by discriminating them from Romanism ; and this is its 
first general and historic characteristic. 

II. THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION IS EVANGELICAL. 

In its literal sense the word Evangelical means " according to the 
gospel," but in its historic sense it signifies " salvation by grace." 
This signification it received during the Reformation, in conse- 
quence of the peculiarity of the religious controversy which then 
took place. The differences between the Protestants and Romanists 
were numerous and embraced both doctrine and practice. But 
while this was the case, it was manifest that most, if not all, these 
differences arose from the divergent views entertained by the con- 
tending parties on the doctrine of justification by faith. A term 
was therefore needed to express the distinguishing difference between 
the Romish and Protestant systems of doctrine, and the word Evan- 
gelical was chosen for this purpose. It expresses the generic con- 
ception of "salvation by grace" held by the Protestants, over 
against the legalistic conception of salvation by works, maintained 
by the Romanists. The Romish Church teaches " that, although a 
man is entitled in part to justification, through the merits of Christ, 
these are nevertheless not sufficient, and hence, he must earn the 
same for himself before his conversion by his own strength and good 
works. Thus he receives the first justification, i. e., regeneration: 
and after this it becomes indispensable that man should continue to 
earn for himself the grace of God and eternal salvation, by keeping. 
the commandments and doing other good works." 

The Confession of Augsburg teaches, " That men cannot be justi- 
15 



2l8 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

fied before God by their own strength, merit or works, but that 
they are justified gratuitously for Christ's sake, through faith, when 
they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are 
remitted on account of Christ, who made satisfaction for our trans- 
gressions by His death. This faith God imputes to us as righteous- 
ness." 

The relative importance and character of the article on Justifica- 
tion by Faith, are set forth by Melanchthon in the Apology. It is 
here declared that it constitutes " the principal and most important 
article of Christian doctrine," and the " only key to the whole 
Bible ;" that it " contributes especially to a clear and correct appre- 
hension of all the holy Scriptures;" that it " alone shows the way 
to the unspeakable treasure and the true knowledge of Christ, with- 
out which the poor conscience can have no true, invariable, fixed 
hope, nor conceive the riches of the grace of Christ." 

This conception of justification by the unmerited grace of God, 
through faith alone in the merits of Christ, pervades the entire Con- 
fession. It is its very heart, sending forth its animating influence 
into every article and sentence, and rendering it in all its parts in- 
stinct with saving grace and quickening power. It annihilates all 
claims of merit, that man can set up to secure pardon and accept- 
ance before God, whether based upon the cultivation of natural 
virtue, worldly morality, legalistic obedience, ceremonial perform- 
ances or self-imposed penance, and declares directly and indirectly 
that justification, regeneration, sanctification and salvation, can 
only be obtained as the free gift of God, through faith in Jesus 
Christ. If the article on justification determines, as Luther said, 
" the character of a standing or falling Church," it determines also 
the character of the Augsburg Confession as pre-eminently Evan- 
gelical. 

III. THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION IS ORTHODOX. 

The Bible contains the revelation of God. Its authors were in- 
spired by the Holy Ghost. It furnishes man with an infallible rule 
of faith and practice. It is placed in his hands and he is com- 
manded to search it, believe its truths, and regulate his life accord- 
ing to its precepts. As a written directory its meaning is said to be 
so clear, that even the wayfaring man, with his minimum degree of 
knowledge, may find the way of life. And as an additional safe- 



DR. CONRAD S ESSAY. 2 1 9 

guard against the delusions of error, the Holy Spirit is given to aid 
man in the discovery, apprehension and practice of the truth which 
it reveals. Adequate provision has thus been made to guard the 
Church against the perversion of the Scriptures, and the promulga- 
tion of destructive error, and to secure from her, as the true wit- 
ness of God, a faithful testimony of saving truth. Such a testimony 
is found in the (Ecumenical Creeds, which have stood through ages 
as a barrier to heresy and a bulwark to the Christian faith. 

The doctrines thus confessed by the Church catholic, either by 
formal statement or necessary implication, are : The Trinity of 
Persons in the Godhead, the Divinity of Christ, the vicarious nature 
of the atonement, the depravity of the human race, justification by 
faith alone, the necessity of regeneration by the Holy Ghost, the 
obligation to live a holy life, the appointment of the ministry, the 
institution of Baptism and the Lord's Supper as means of grace, the 
immortality of the soul, the resurrection of the body, the everlasting 
blessedness of the righteous, and the eternal damnation of the 
wicked. 

The term " orthodox," which in its literal sense means " right in 
opinion," has been employed in ecclesiastical usage, to designate 
the truths above stated as the essential doctrines of the Christian 
system. These doctrines are inseparably connected and constitute 
a consistent whole. The denial of any one of them will impair the 
integrity of the system, and affect the genuineness of faith. The 
rejection of all of them, and the substitution of their opposites, 
would involve an utter perversion of the Scriptures, and the ruin of 
the Church. 

The Augsburg Confession not only recognizes the symbolical 
character of the GEcumenical Creeds, but contains a consistent devel- 
opment and a fuller statement of the doctrines they contain, and it 
may therefore be justly designated as thoroughly orthodox. 

IV. THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION IS LUTHERAN. 

Luther was endowed with such rare natural and spiritual abilities 
by the Providence and grace of God, as to constitute him at once 
the leading reformer. He first discovered the Bible, detected the 
delusive errors of Rome, and promulgated the saving truths of the 
Gospel. He thus became the author of the Reformation, and as its 
master spirit directed its course. From his extraordinary theo- 



220 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

logical and ecclesiastical resources he supplied its doctrinal, cate- 
chetical, liturgical and governmental principles, and stamped his 
own impress upon it. He translated the Bible into the vernacular 
tongue for the people. He prepared a catechism for the children, 
and provided a liturgy for the altar. He composed hymns and tunes 
for the service of song, and furnished the material for the prepara- 
tion of the Augsburg Confession, as a symbolic standard for the 
Evangelical Church. In view, therefore, of the service rendered 
Melanchthon in the compilation and composition of the Confession 
by Luther, he could justly claim it as his own (which he did), and 
while Melanchthon could, with characteristic modesty, call it "the 
Confession of the revered Doctor Luther," Luther could in the 
same spirit return the compliment, and designate it as " the Apology 
of Master Philip." 

The doctrines and ecclesiastical principles set forth in the Confes- 
sion were those held and maintained by Luther. On this account, 
the Romanists applied the terms "Lutheran" and "Lutheranism" as 
epithets of reproach to the Church of the Augsburg Confession, and 
to the system of doctrine it contained ; and they were accepted and 
employed by the Protestants, as a matter of convenience, in distin- 
guishing the followers of Luther from the Romanists on the one 
hand, and from the Reformed on the other. 

Other differences may be detected in the doctrinal statements 
made in the Reformed and Lutheran Confessions; but the principal 
differences have reference to the sacraments and confession. The 
Lutheran views on these subjects, as distinguished from those of the 
Reformed, are contained in the IX., X., XI. and XIII. Articles of the 
Confession, treating of Baptism, the Lord's Supper, the Use of the 
Sacraments, and Confession. 

Article X. — Of the Lord's Supper. 

"Concerning the Holy Supper of the Lord it is taught that the true 
body and blood of Christ are truly present, under the form of bread 
and wine, in the Lord's Supper, and are there administered and re- 
ceived. The opposite doctrine is, therefore, rejected." 

In this article the Lutheran doctrine of the real presence of Christ 
in the Lord's Supper is presented. It is based upon the inseparable 
union of the human and divine natures in the constitution of the per- 
son of Christ (Art. III.), from which it necessarily follows that the 



DR. CONRAD'S ESSAY. 221 

person of Christ cannot be divided into two parts, and the divine 
nature, separated from the human, be present on earth and every- 
where else ; and the human nature, separated from the divine, be 
present in heaven and nowhere else ; but that wherever and when- 
ever Christ is present, whether at the right hand of God in heaven 
or in the Holy Supper on earth, He must be present in His whole 
person, constituted of natures both human and divine, indissolubly 
united. It is distinguished from the Romish doctrine of Transub- 
stantiation, according to which the bread and wine are changed into 
the body and blood of Christ; and also from the extreme Zwinglian 
doctrine, according to which the supernatural presence and recep- 
tion of the body and blood of Christ in the Lord's Supper are 
altogether denied, and its purely commemorative character alone 
affirmed. The mode of the presence and the manner of the recep- 
tion of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist are not defined 
in the Article; but from the discriminating explanations given 
thereof by the Lutheran confessors and theologians, the candid 
inquirer may obtain correct apprehensions in regard to them. 

Luther, in setting forth his views on this subject, says: "Christ's 
body has three modes of presence. First, the comprehensible, cor- 
poreal mode, such as He used when He was on earth, local. Secondly, 
in another, incomprehensible, spiritual mode, it can be present illo- 
call. Moreover (thirdly) it can be present in a divine and heavenly 
mode, since it is one person with God." The Confessors, accord- 
ingly, denied that Christ's body was present locally in the Lord's 
Supper, and held that in that sense, as circumscribed in space, it 
was in heaven, and could not at the same time be present anywhere 
else. They also rejected impanatioji, that Christ is in the bread and 
wine — stibpanaHon, that Christ is under the bread and wine— and 
consubstantiation, that the body and blood of Christ are changed 
into one substance with the bread and wine, as well as a local and 
physical conjunction of the body and blood of Christ with the bread 
and wine. They held the presence of the body and blood of Christ 
as true, real and substantial ; the mode of their presence, as spiritual, 
supernatural and heavenly ; and their reception, under the form of 
bread and wine, as mystical, sacramental and incomprehensible. 

From these representations it is manifest that the Confessors dis- 
carded every physical and materialistic conception of the presence, 
as well as every species of a gross, carnal or Capernaitish eating of 



222 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

the body and drinking of the blood of Christ in the Holy Supper ; 
and regarded it not only as a memorial and symbol through the ob- 
servance of which they commemorated and showed forth His death, 
but also as a communion through the partaking of which the bread 
which they brake became " the communion of the body of Christ," 
and the cup of blessing, which they blessed, "the communion of 
the blood of Christ." And from the records of history, they as- 
serted that the doctrine of the Real Presence was held in the prim- 
itive ages by the universal Church, that it was perverted by the 
Romish Church and transformed into transubstantiation, and that 
it was divested by them of its superstitious features, and reaffirmed 
and confessed in its scriptural purity. 

Candor constrains us, however, to admit, that language was used, 
illustrations and arguments employed, and authorities cited, in the 
sacramental controversies that took place during the Reformation, 
which, when taken in their literal sense, and interpreted without any 
regard to their connection, or the disclaimers and explanations 
made by the Lutheran Confessors, have led to grave misconceptions, 
and gross misrepresentations of the Lutheran doctrine of the Real 
Presence of Christ in the Lord's Supper, not only by the rejectors 
of the doctrine but by Lutherans themselves. 

Article IX. — Of Baptism. 

" Concerning Baptism it is taught that it is necessary; and that 
children ought to be baptized, who are through such Baptism pre- 
sented unto God, and become acceptable unto Him." 

In this article the Lutheran doctrine of Baptism is set forth. 
From the declarations it contains, and the explanations made by the 
Confessors in their other confessional writings, their views in regard 
to Baptism may be learned from the following summary statement : 

Baptism is a religious ordinance, instituted by Jesus Christ. Its 
constituent elements are water and the Word of God. Its adminis- 
tration consists in the application of water in the name of the Father, 
Son and Holy Ghost, by an authorized minister of the Gospel, either 
by sprinkling, pouring or immersion. Its subjects are adult be- 
lievers and their children. Its validity is based upon its divine in- 
stitution and observance according to the command of God, and 
not upon either the character of the administrator, the mode of 
applying the water, or the faith of the recipient. It is a sacrament, 



DR. CONRAD S ESSAY. 223 

or "visible word;" an efficacious sign and seal of the premise of 
God ; a sure testimony of His will toward us. It becomes efficacious, 
not ex opere operato, but through faith, apprehending the truths 
signified, and relying upon the promise made by it. It is a means 
of grace, through which God offers His grace and confers the Holy 
Spirit, who excites and confirms faith in those who use it aright, 
whereby they obtain the remission of sins, are born again, released 
from condemnation and eternal death, and are received and remain 
in God's favor, so long as they continue in a state of faith and 
bring forth good works ; but to them who are destitute of faith it 
remains a fruitless sign and imparts no blessing ; while those who 
misimprove their Baptism by a course of willful sin and wicked 
works, receive the grace of God in vain, grieve and lose the 
Holy Spirit, and fall into a state of condemnation, from which 
they cannot be recovered, except by true conversion, involving 
a renewal of the understanding, will and heart. Baptism ought 
also to be administered to children, who through it are offered 
to God, become acceptable to Him, and are received into his 
favor. It imposes the duty of Christian nurture upon parents and 
the Church, and finds its complement in Confirmation. It is 
ordinarily necessary, as a divinely appointed ordinance, but not 
absolutely essential to salvation. In these statements the Lutheran 
doctrine of " Baptismal Grace," as maintained by the Confessors, is 
comprehended. It was confessed by the primitive Church and de- 
fended by the Christian Fathers. It was perverted by the Romish 
Church and transformed into " Baptismal Regeneration," ex opere 
operato. It was drawn by the Confessors from the Holy Scriptures, 
sustained by the most learned and profound commentators of both 
ancient and modern times, and accepted by many Protestants of 
other denominations. 

Article XIII. — Of the Use of the Sacraments. 

"Concerning the use of the Sacraments, it is taught that they 
have been instituted, not only as tokens by which Christians may 
be known externally, but as signs and evidences of the divine will 
towards us, for the purpose of exciting and strengthening our faith; 
hence they also require faith, and they are properly used then only 
when received in faith, and when faith is strengthened by them." 

The manner in which the sacraments become efficacious in excit- 



224 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

ing and strengthening faith, is explained by Melanchthon in the 
Apology as follows : "The sacraments, as external signs, were in- 
stituted to move our hearts, namely, both by the word and the ex- 
ternal signs, to believe when we are baptized, and when we receive 
the Lord's body, that God will be truly merciful to us, as Paul says, 
Rom. x: 17, Faith cometh by hearing." As the word enters 
our ears, so the external signs are placed before our eyes, inwardly 
to excite and move the heart to faith. The word and the external 
signs work the same thing in our hearts ; as Augustin well says : 
"The sacrament is a visible word, for the external sign is like a 
picture, and signifies the same thing preached by the word ; both, 
therefore, effect the same thing." 

Article XI. — Of Confession. 

"In reference to Confession, it is taught that private absolution 
ought to be retained in the Church and should not be discontinued. 
In Confession, however, it is unnecessary to enumerate all transgres- 
sions and sins, which, indeed, is not possible. Ps. xix: 12 : Who 
can understand his errors ? " 

In this article the Confessors present the Lutheran view of Confes- 
sion and Absolution. They retained, indeed, the words "confes- 
sion " and " absolution," but they employed them in an evangelical 
sense. They rejected "auricular confession" and priestly absolu- 
tion, as practiced by the Romish Church. They retained, however, 
private or individual confession and scriptural absolution, principally 
on account of the comfort thus afforded to penitent souls, in their 
approach to the Lord's Table. They did not regard confession as 
commanded by the Scriptures, and its practice as necessary, obliga- 
tory and unchangeable. They recognized it as a custom, estab- 
lished by the Church, in the exercise of her Christian liberty, and 
which might be either changed or abrogated. The practice of 
private individual confession has, accordingly, been discontinued 
in the Lutheran Church to a very great extent, and the custom of 
making a general confession of sin by the congregations collectively 
at the service preparatory to the Lord's Supper has been introduced 
in its stead. 

The Scriptural interpretation of Absolution, in the evangelical 
sense, is given by Luther in his celebrated sermon on the remission 
of sins, as follows: 



DR. CONRAD S ESSAY. 225 

"The remission of sins is out of the power of the pope, bishop or 
priest, or any other man living, and rests solely on the Word of 
Christ and thine own faith. For if a simple believer say to thee, 
though a woman or a child, ' God pardon thy sins in the name of 
Jesus Christ,' and thou receive that word with strong faith, thou art 
absolved; but let faith in pardon through Christ hold the first place 
and command the whole field of your warfare." 

Confession and Absolution, as thus explained by Luther, meant 
nothing more than the declaration of the promise of pardon made 
by God to the confessing, penitent and believing soul, whether 
uttered formally by the pastor at the preparatory service, or infor- 
mally to the inquiring soul while engaged in his pastoral work, or 
declared in the public promulgation of the Gospel. 

The doctrines concerning the Lord's Supper, Baptism and Con- 
fession, distinguish the Lutheran from the Reformed Churches. In 
these, as well as in some other doctrines, there are points of agree- 
ment and of difference, the specific presentation of which our limits 
forbid us to attempt. And as the doctrines held by Luther on the 
Sacraments and Confession are set forth in the Augsburg Confession, 
it may properly and truly be called Lutheran. 

V. THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION IS CONSERVATIVE. 

When the great religious movement of the sixteenth century was 
contemplated from the standpoint of church authority, it was called 
Protestant; when from that of doctrine, Evangelical, and when from 
that of morals, the Reformation. But reformation presupposes the 
prevalence of corruption. Such corruption had taken place in the 
Church of Rome. It was general, embracing doctrine and practice. 
Its existence had been acknowledged and its pernicious influence 
felt and lamented for ages. Wickliffe, Huss and Jerome had borne 
witness against it, and sealed their testimony with their blood. The 
most candid among the Romanists themselves, acknowledged the 
prevalence of error and advocated measures of reform ; but their 
counsels were unheeded, and the tide of corruption continued to 
flow. 

Thus, the unwillingness of the Church of Rome to correct her 
errors and reform her superstitious practices, became the occasion of 
the origination of the Augsburg Confession, and determined both 
its matter and form. In the first part, it presents the principles of 



226 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

reform, and in the second applies them to the correction of abuses. 
In the accomplishment of these ends, the Confessors did not in- 
vent novel instrumentalities and agencies of reform, but availed 
themselves of those which God had furnished ready to their hands. 
They relied upon the legitimate use of the divinely-appointed means 
of grace, the preaching of the Word, and the administration of the 
Sacraments. These are set forth in the articles on justification, the 
office of the ministry, new obedience, and the institution and effi- 
cacy of the sacraments. 

In the prosecution of the work of reform, different principles and 
methods were adopted by the various contending parties in the Re- 
formation. The Romanists, under the claim of papal infallibility, 
resisted all reform. The Anabaptists overturned all established 
religious institutions, and began to build anew from the very founda- 
tion. The Reformed rejected all forms, ceremonies and usages not 
commanded in the Scriptures, and the Lutherans discarded all prac- 
tices clearly condemned by the Word of God, but retained such 
usages as were not contrary to the Scriptures, in the expectation 
that those customs which would prove unedifying and injurious, 
would, in due time, be either improved or abrogated. 

This is true conservatism. It detects error and aims at correcting 
it ; it recognizes evils, and tries to remove them ; it is not afraid 
to pull down, but it anticipates the necessity, and makes timely and 
adequate preparation, for building up. In the accomplishment of 
its reformatory ends it takes wise counsel from experience, adopts 
Scriptural means, employs rational methods, and exhibits becoming 
patience under the inspiration of hope. And such conservatism is 
a leading characteristic of the great Confession of Augsburg. 

VI. IT IS ALSO TRULY CATHOLIC. 

The term catholic, in its literal sense, means general, and as such 
stands as the antithesis of specific. A confession may, therefore, be 
designated as catholic just in proportion as it states truth in a gen- 
eral or in a specific form. According to this criterion, the ancient 
creeds, although pre-eminently distinguished for their catholicity, 
differ in the degree in which they exhibit it. The Athanasian Creed 
is more specific and less catholic than the Nicene ; and the Apostles' 
Creed is less specific than the Nicene, and the most catholic confes- 
sion of Christendom. The Augsburg Confession does, indeed, em- 



DR. CONRAD S ESSAY. 227 

brace many more points of doctrine, and sets most of them forth 
in a more specific form than the (Ecumenical Creeds; but it is, 
nevertheless, distinguished in these respects from many of the con- 
fessions subsequently adopted by the Lutheran as well as the Re- 
formed churches. 

The Confessors expressly state that in presenting the Articles of 
Faith contained in their Confession, they had restricted themselves 
to the principal points and presented only '*' the sum of the doctrines 
held by them, and taught in their churches." They set forth the 
chief or fundamental articles of faith deemed necessary to exhibit 
their faith in the truth of the Gospel, and to furnish a basis of union 
and fellowship in the Christian Church. They abstained designedly 
from introducing many minor or non-essential points, as well as 
from stating the main or essential points in minute and extended 
detail. On the contrary, they satisfied themselves with originating 
but twenty-one articles of faith, and with declaring the truths they 
contain in brief general statements. And although for this reason 
the Augsburg Confession is less catholic than either of the (Ecumen- 
ical Creeds, it nevertheless partakes more of their distinguishing 
characteristics than it does of those of the Thirty-nine Articles, the 
Westminister Confession, or the Form of Concord. And as the 
(Ecumenical Creeds, because of their catholicity, proved themselves 
adapted to be the bond of union between the pure parts of the Church 
Catholic in primitive times, the Augsburg Confession, on account of 
its catholicity, is pre-eminently adapted to constitute the bond of 
union between the pure parts of the revived primitive and the re- 
formed Protestant Church of modern times. This has been verified 
in its history. As modified and explained by Melanchthon, it has 
not only been adopted by all Lutheran, but also by many Reformed 
theologians and churches. 

John Calvin was installed as pastor and professor of theology in 
the city of Strasburg in 1538, which in its collective capacity had 
signed the unaltered Augsburg Confession. He signed it himself 
in 1539, and appeared in the deliberations in 15 41 at Worms and 
Ratisbon as a Lutheran theologian. In referring to this, Calvin 
said : " Nor do I repudiate the Augsburg Confession (which I long 
ago willingly and gladly signed) as explained by its author." It 
was also signed, says Dr. Schaff, by Farel and Beza at the confer- 
ence at Worms, in 1557 ; by the Calvinists at Bremen, in 1562 ; by 



228 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Frederick III., the (Reformed) Elector of the Palatinate, at the 
convent of Princes, at Naumburg, in 156 1; and again at the 
Diet of Augsburg, in 1566; and by John Sigismund, of Branden- 
burg, in 1614. 

But the catholicity of the Augsburg Confession was not only 
recognized during the Reformation ; it has also been illustrated 
in our day. In 1853, a church diet was held at Berlin, at which 
more than 1400 pastors, professors and theologians were present, 
representing the four grand divisions of Protestantism in Europe — 
the Lutherans, Reformed, the Evangelical Unionists, and the Mo- 
ravians. It was deemed expedient to make a united confession of 
their faith as Protestants, and to deliver a united testimony against 
Roman Catholicism. They therefore acknowledged the Augustana 
as the true expression of their common Protestant faith, in the fol- 
lowing words : " The members of the German Evangelical Church 
Diet hereby put on record, that they hold and profess with heart 
and mouth, the Confession delivered A. D. 1530, at the Diet of 
Augsburg, by the Evangelical Princes and States to the Emperor 
Charles V. , and hereby publicly testify their agreement with it, as 
the oldest, simplest common document of publicly recognized 
Evangelical doctrine in Germany." It was, however, expressly 
understood that they did not thereby compromise their respective 
positions to the Tenth Article, and to the particular confessions of 
their respective ecclesiastical associations. 

The Augsburg Confession in its catholicity has become a compo- 
nent confessional part of the Evangelical Church of Prussia during 
the last half century. In view of the facts just stated, and of its 
whole history, Dr. Schaff states that ' ' Some German writers of the 
Evangelical Unionist school have based the hope, that the Augsburg 
Confession may one day become the united Confession or Oecumeni- 
cal Creed of all the Evangelical Churches of Germany." This view 
is also expressed by Gieseler, the distinguished Reformed church 
historian. He says : " If the question be, which among all the 
Protestant Confessions is best adapted for forming the foundation of 
a union among Protestant churches, we declare ourselves unre- 
servedly for the Augsburg Confession." 

As thus distinguished, the Augsburg Confession may justly be re- 
garded not only as the CE^umenical Creed of the Lutheran, but of 
the whole Protestant Church. Through its recognition of the (Ecu- 



DR. CONRAD S ESSAY. 



229 



menical Creeds, it reaches back and establishes a legitimate connec- 
tion and ecclesiastical fellowship with the Holy Catholic Church of 
every age. For the Confessors of Augsburg expressly declared, that 
they had adopted no articles of faith, and introduced no ceremonies 
of religion, which were inconsistent with those of the Universal 
Christian Church. And this claim is established by its oecumenical 
characteristics, its adaptation for promoting Church union, and by 
the testimony of true witnesses, down to the apostolic age. And 
this characteristic of the Confession we hold to be the crown of its 
highest glory. 

VII. THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION IS SCRIPTURAL. 

The Confessors acknowledged the Canonical Scriptures to be the 
inspired Word of God, and the only infallible rule of faith and prac- 
tice. They exalted the authority of the Scriptures above that of the 
fathers, the popes and the councils, and recognized them as the 
ultimate umpire by which all religious questions must be decided. 
They regarded the Word of God as the true source of all confessions, 
by which the correctness of their statements was to be tested. From 
the Holy Scriptures they drew their Confession, and to their unerr- 
ing testimony they appealed for the verification of the declarations 
it contained. 

In accordance with these positions, the Confessors, in presenting 
their Confession to the Emperor, declared that it was drawn in its 
present form from the Holy Scriptures ; that in the Articles of Faith 
there is nothing taught contrary to the Holy Scriptures; that they 
were constrained to correct the abuses which existed in ihe Romish 
churches by the command of God ; that the doctrines set forth in 
their Confession were clearly taught in the Holy Scriptures ; and 
that they would not expose their own souls and consciences to the 
greatest danger before God, by misusing or abusing the Divine Name 
and Word, nor transmit to their children and followers any other 
doctrine than is consonant with the pure, Divine Word and Chris- 
tian truth. And on these grounds they claimed that their Confes- 
sion was both " Scriptural and Christian." 

To this great work the Confessors were called in the Providence 
of God, and for its achievement they possessed the necessary quali- 
fications. Luther stood pre-eminent as a Biblical scholar, and 
Melanchthon was the first theologian of his age. Most of the other 



23O FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

theologians were distinguished for their theological attainments, and 
some of the Evangelical Princes were well versed in the knowledge 
of the Scriptures. During the preparation of the Confession, daily 
conferences were held by the Confessors, at which Melanchthon 
submitted the parts as they were finished. Every article was then 
compared with the Scriptures, sentence by sentence, and, after due 
examination, either accepted or modified, and then adopted as con- 
sonant with the Word of God. Luther, to whom it had been sub- 
mitted, subjected it to a similar test. In referring to this he says : 
"I am occupied with the matter day and night, thinking over it, 
revolving it in my mind, arguing, searching the entire Scriptures ; 
and there grows upon me constantly that fullness of assurance in 
this our doctrine, that is, in its Scriptural verity." Realizing their 
liability to err, and their dependence on divine direction, they 
prayed with one accord for the enlightening influences of the Holy 
Spirit, that He might guide them into the saving knowledge of the 
truth, and to preserve them from falling into error. 

And in this aim and effort, the Confessors were successful. Not- 
withstanding the peculiar circumstances in which they were placed, 
and the various influences to which they were exposed, they were 
so directed and guarded by the Providence and grace of God, as to 
bring forth a Scriptural Confession. Some of its doctrinal state- 
ments they made in the language of the Scriptures, and others they 
sustained by relevant proof passages. It carried this conviction 
with it to candid minds at its first reading. It drew this acknowl- 
edgment from the Bishop of Augsburg : "All that the Lutherans 
have said is true, and we cannot deny it." When the Duke of 
Bavaria asked Eck, " Can you by sound reasons refute the Confes- 
sion of the Elector and his allies?" he replied : " With the writings 
of the apostles and prophets, no ; but with those of the fathers and 
councils, yes." His reply was : "I understand it. The Lutherans 
are in the Scriptures, and we are outside of them." 

We do not, however, understand the Confessors as claiming a 
Scriptural origin for every word and phrase, statement and reference, 
in the Confession ; for a careful examination proves that it con- 
tains philosophical statements, historical references, authoritative 
quotations, individual opinions, and incidental matters, drawn from 
other sources than the Scriptures. Nor would we make the impres- 
sion that they were under a kind of semi-inspiration, rendering 



DR. CONRAD S ESSAY. 23 I 

them for the time being infallible, and that in consequence of such 
extraordinary enlightenment, they expressed in every word and 
phrase employed by them the exact conception of the Holy Ghost ; 
for this is more than can be justly claimed for any human produc- 
tion, and involves both inspiration and infallibility. But we main- 
tain that in regard to all the great truths entering into the constitu- 
tion of the Evangelical Lutheran system, and indispensable to the 
attainment of soundness in doctrine and purity in practice, they 
did succeed in discovering, and in expressing them correctly in 
their Confession. 

Being eminently Scriptural, it has carried conviction to all un- 
prejudiced minds, and made converts among pastors and churches, 
princes and nobles, kings and emperors. It has won allegiance 
from teachers and professors, and has transformed schools and uni- 
versities. It has conquered cities and towns, kingdoms and empires. 
As the source whence it is drawn appears the more pure as the light 
by which it is examined increases, so does this Confession appear 
the more Scriptural, as the increased light of philology and exegesis 
has been thrown upon it. The profoundest Biblical scholars and 
the most diligent students of the Confession, have been the most 
fully convinced of its truthfulness, and became its most ardent ad- 
mirers and defenders. It still throws its convincing sceptre over 
more than half the Protestant world, and through the testimony of 
millions of Christians in nearly all nations and climes, it vindicates 
the claim that it sets forth the most precious truths revealed in the 
Scriptures of God. 

The Augsburg Confession was not originally prepared as a Church 
symbol. Its design was two-fold : first, to point out the doctrines 
and ceremonies in dispute between the Protestants and the Catho- 
lics ; and secondly, to refute the slanders that had been circulated 
concerning the doctrines held by the Confessors. The Articles of 
Faith were accordingly presented in the form of a Confession, and 
the Abuses Corrected in that of an Apology. It was not regarded 
as complete in its original form, and hence it received many 
changes from the hand of Melanchthon in subsequent editions, 
culminating in that of 1540. These changes were intended by 
their author to be improvements, and were regarded as such by 
his contemporaries. Nor was the course pursued by Melanchthon 
in this respect singular. The Romanists made changes in their 



232 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Confutation after it was presented to the Diet. Melanchthon did 
the same with his Apology in reply to it; and Luther took the 
same liberty with the Smalcald Articles after their first presentation. 
From all of which it is manifest, that during the lives of Luther 
and Melanchthon, the formative period of the Reformation, the 
text of the original Confession was not regarded as sacred and un- 
changeable, and that the edition of 1530 had not yet been invested 
with any special confessional authority. 

The statement made in the Confession, that it contained "about 
the sum of the doctrines," taught by the Protestant pastors in their 
churches, was true, but neither the pastors nor the churches had 
ever formally adopted or subscribed it. But when it became mani- 
fest that the questions at issue could not be satisfactorily settled ; 
that a separation between the Protestants and Romanists was in- 
evitable ; and that necessity was laid upon Luther and his coadju- 
tors to organize the Evangelical, as the revived primitive, Catholic 
Church, then a creed, to serve as a basis of organization and a bond 
of ecclesiastical union, became indispensable, and the Augsburg 
Confession was appropriated to this purpose by common consent. 
The edition selected was that of 1530, edited by Melanchthon him- 
self. It is known as the editio princeps, and is universally recog- 
nized as the symbolic standard of the Lutheran Church. 

The Augsburg Confession, as the mother symbol of the Reforma- 
tion, has exerted a controlling influence in the preparation of a num- 
ber of other Protestant confessions. It was selected by Zinzendorf 
as the doctrinal basis of the Moravian Church. It, together with 
the Wurtemberg Confession, furnished Cranmer with the matter 
for the compilation of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Episcopal 
Church, which, with some modifications, have also become the doc- 
trinal standard of the Methodist .Episcopal Church. It also furn- 
ished Ursinus, a disciple of Melanchthon, and a co worker with 
Olevianus, a disciple of Calvin, in the preparation of the Heidel- 
berg Catechism, the general symbol of the German and Dutch Re- 
formed Churches. It has thus through its moulding influence 
stamped its impress, directly and indirectly, upon all branches of 
the Protestant Church. 

The Augsburg Confession stands pre-eminent, not only among the 
Lutheran symbols, but among all the creeds of Christendom. This 
position is accorded to it, not alone by Lutheran, but also by dis- 
tinguished Reformed witnesses. 



DR. CONRAD S ESSAY. 233 

Dr. Sohaff says: " The Augsburg Confession is the fundamental 
and generally received Confession of the Lutheran Church. * * * 
It is inseparable from the theology and history of that denomina- 
tion ; it best exhibits the prevailing genius of the German Reforma- 
tion. But its influence extends far beyond the Lutheran Church. 
It struck the key-note to other evangelical confessions, and strength- 
ened the cause of the Reformation everywhere, and it will ever be 
cherished as one of the noblest monuments of faith from the Pente- 
costal period of Protestantism." Spalatin said " It is a Confession 
the like of which has not been promulgated for a thousand years." 
D'Aubigne, the distinguished Calvinistic historian of the Reforma- 
tion, testifies: "This Confession of Augsburg will forever remain 
one of the master-pieces of the human mind, enlightened by the 
Spirit of God." 

The influence and value of the Confession can scarcely be over- 
estimated. As a Confession, it is a faithful witness of the truth, 
and bears unimpeachable testimony against error. As an Apology, 
it is a complete vindication of Protestantism and an unanswerable 
arraignment of Romanism. As Protestant, it is the magna charta 
of liberty to the State, and a declaration of independence to the 
Church. As evangelical, it publishes the glad tidings of salvation 
by grace, through faith alone in Jesus Christ. As orthodox, it 
condemns heresy, and excludes heretics from its fellowship. As 
Lutheran, it sets forth the distinctive doctrines and principles of the 
Evangelical Lutheran Church. As conservative, it proves all things 
and holds fast that which is good. As catholic, it recognizes the 
priesthood of believers, and acknowledges their right to the com- 
munion of saints. And as Scriptural, it holds forth the Word of 
Life, as the only hope of salvation to a ruined world. 

REMARKS OF REV. C. P. KRAUTH, D. D., LL. D. {General Council.) 

Dr. Krauth said that various statements in the elaborate essay of 
Dr. Conrad needed further elucidation. Two lines of thinking ran 
through it, which did not always seem in perfect accord. Melanch- 
thon was not strictly the author of the Confession, but rather its 
composer. As an official paper, it belongs to those who signed it,. 
and gave it to the Emperor, and to those in whose name they were 
16 



234 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

entitled to act. Once delivered, neither Melanchthon, nor the 
signers, had any moral right to set forth a changed document as 
the document laid before the Diet of the Empire. A Confession 
varied purely in verbal respects might be but a perilous impropriety, 
but a Confession varied in meaning would be a fraud and falsehood. 
Those who say that Melanchthon in the Variata introduced changes 
in doctrine, charge him with immorality of a gross kind, the charge 
being made more severe by the fact that he disavows having made 
any change whatever in the sense. 

Zwingli's Fidei Ratio, which he sent to the Emperor, is dated 
July 3d, 1530, and could hardly have influenced the Augsburg Con- 
fession, which had been read the 25 th of the month previous. The 
conception of influence which runs through part of the essay seems 
vague and conflicting. The doctrine was fixed before the Diet 
met, and embodied in Luther's Seventeen Articles, and as Dr. Con- 
rad shows, was rightly fixed and rightly confessed. 

Philip of Hesse was a blot on the whole fair fame of the Refor- 
mation — involving Luther in the only transaction of his life which 
requires a defence. Philip, a young man at the time of the Diet, 
was eager for political combination, and his zeal for or against the 
dividing doctrines of Luther and Zwingli was not very great. He 
insisted that Zwingli's deviation from Luther was verbal merely. 
Were it true that, although he rejected the Tenth Article, he was 
urged to sign the Confession, it might well be asked why the Zwin- 
glians at large were excluded ? why the Tetrapolitans were not in- 
cluded? But the facts are these : Philip was one of the Lutheran 
Princes. The Reformation in Hesse had been conducted in accord- 
ance with Melanchthon's counsel. The political Unionism of Philip, 
inspired however great hopes on the part of the Zwinglians, that 
negatively at least he would help them. Luther, at Melanchthon's 
urgent request, wrote to Philip to counteract this influence (May 
20, 1530). Whatever sympathy Philip felt with the Zwinglians, 
when the time of signing the Confession approached, was secret. 



DISCUSSION. 235 

Philip signed the Confession, and thus in the most solemn manner 
declared it to be his faith. If he was dissatisfied with the Tenth 
Article, on the ground that it was false doctrine, he made himself a 
perjured man in signing it. When, on June 23d, the Confession 
was read in full assembly of the orders for the very purpose of 
giving opportunity for any suggestion, it was approved by all and 
each — the Landgrave of Hesse included. When, on the 24th of 
June, the question was raised whether the request of the Emperor 
should be granted to have it merely handed to him in writing, the 
Landgrave led the opposition to his wish, and insisted that it should 
be read publicly before the Estates of the Realm, and it was so read 
the next day. And it is Erhard Schnepf, the Landgrave's court 
preacher, who was present through the whole, who says expressly, 
that not one of those who took part in the Augsburg Confession, 
and was admitted to the discussions, held the view of the Zwingli- 
ans. On the 25th of June, perhaps while the Confession was actu- 
ally being read, Melanchthon wrote to Luther: "The Landgrave 
approves of our Confession, and has signed it." The day after, 
Melanchthon wrote to Vitus Theodorus : "The Landgrave has 
signed with us in the Confession, in which is also an Article on the 
Lord's Supper, in accordance with the judgment of Luther." He 
was not allowed to sign it with any expressed reservation as to doc- 
trine, whatever. 

The Wittenberg Concord hardly seems in place in a statement 
of the influences which shaped the Augsburg Confession, as it was 
not prepared till 1536. It is not a concession to Zwinglianism, nor 
Calvinism, but is a powerful rejection and exposure of it, from Lu- 
ther's own hand. None but a Lutheran could sign it in good faith. 
Bucer in signing it professed to abandon the Zwinglian view, and 
to come over to Luther's. The honest Zwinglians rejected the 
Concord, and repelled Bucer when he attempted to bring them to 
accord with it, and treated him as an apostate. When Luther 
spoke of the Swiss as " dear brethren," it was under an impression 



236 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

easily made upon his guileless and loving nature, that they had act- 
ually come to the recognition of the truth, and his feeling that he 
had been deluded in this was the cause of his later bitterness. 

It is not a correct statement that the Romanists did not object to 
the doctrine of the Tenth Article Dr. Krauth then read from the 
Romish Confutation, what is said on the Tenth Article, They 
object that it does not teach the doctrine of concomitance, by 
which the Romish Church justifies the Communion in one kind, 
and insists that it is extremely necessary to the Article, that the 
doctrine of Transubstantiation shall be added to it. 

The Lutheran Church does not define the mode of presence ; that 
is, does not attempt to solve to human reason how so great a thing 
can be ; but the kind of presence she does define as real, superna- 
tural, substantial presence, as against what is imaginary or subject- 
ive. She denies that it is in that sense spiritual, yet she holds that 
it is spiritual as against the carnal. If the mode of presence were a 
presence to memory or faith, there could be no difficulty in stating 
it. It is a deep and vital question, and the principles of interpreta- 
tion are so far-reaching, that if our Church is wrong — if she holds 
that something is really Christ's body and blood, .which He clearly 
teaches is no more than bread and wine— instead of standing up as 
a great witness for truth in the world, she should be willing to fall 
humbly at the feet of a little child which has the true mind of the 
Spirit, and ask that child to teach her. In regard to the Variata in 
the Lutheran Church, the truth is that Melanchthon constantly 
affirmed that its doctrine is the same as that of the Augsburg Con- 
fession ; that after its appearance, he repeatedly, in solemn public 
testification, accepted the Unchanged Confession and the Apology, 
and rejected Zwinglianism in the strongest terms. So long as the 
Lutheran Church believed that there was no change of meaning, and 
solely because of this belief, the Variata was tolerated. In the Diet of 
the Princes, at Naumburg, 1561, the various later editions of the 
Confession were recognized, because of their greater explicitness 



DISCUSSION. 237 

against Romish errors, but the original edition of 1530 alone was 
subscribed. From the hour that the Variata began to be regarded 
as having changed the doctrine or rendered it ambiguous, all gen- 
uine Lutherans set themselves against it. 

The Augsburg Confession offers a point of union for divided 
Protestantism, but union will be effected neither by Variatas in the 
Creed, which change the words, nor by Variatas in men, which 
keep the word, but change the sense or repudiate it. When men 
are agreed in a hearty and intelligent acceptance of the Augsburg 
Confession, the Formula of Concord will form no barrier between 
them. Dr. Conrad is an enthusiast for union in our Church, but 
there can be no union except in the unity of the truth. Till he 
realizes this, his toils will be in vain. 

REMARKS OF REV. PROF. J. A. BROWN, D. D. {General Synod.) 
We are a little surprised to find Dr. Conrad repeating the state- 
ment of the Augsburg Confession being sent to Luther "between 
the 2 2d of May and the 2d of June, and again securing Luther 's 
unqualified approval." We challenge the proof of this fact. We 
have a right to be furnished with the evidence on which it rests ; and 
in the absence of any reliable testimony to the fact, we pronounce 
it a myth. We speak advisedly on this subject. We do not need 
to prove a negative, but we have asked, and now ask again, for any 
such proof as would satisfy an intelligent and impartial judge. If 
there is any such proof, let it be forthcoming, for we regard that 
usually adduced utterly unreliable and unsatisfactory. As Dr. 
Krauth has endorsed the statement of Dr. Conrad, we now, in the 
presence of this Diet, challenge them both to furnish, in the Church 
papers or elsewhere, such evidence as would be accepted in any 
court, or satisfy any impartial jury. We simply deny that they have 
given us any reliable evidence for their allegations, and we hold 
them to the proof. 

A few questions were asked by Dr. Mann and answered by Dr. 
Conrad. 



238 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

NOTE OF DR. KRAUTH IN ANSWER TO DR. BROWN'S 
CHALLENGE. 

In the Conservative Reformation, p. 232, it is said that the Augs- 
burg Confession "was sent as nearly as possible in its complete 
shape to Luther for a third time, before it was delivered, and was 
approved by him in what may probably be called its final form." 
This is the statement which we understood Dr. Conrad to endorse, 
and Dr. Brown to challenge. If the emphasis is on June 2d, we 
do not endorse Dr. Conrad, nor deny Dr. Brown's statement. It 
was the third sending in which we were interested, and of which 
we spoke. 

1. The first sending of the Confession to Luther was May nth, 
by the Elector ; the second May 2 2d, by Melanchthon. These are 
undisputed. The question is, was there a later sending — that is, be- 
tween May 2 2d and June 25th {not June 2d) — an interval of about 
five weeks. 

2. The evidence relied upon is Melanchthon's own statement. 
It is found /., in the preface to his Book of Christian Doctrine 
(Corpus Doctrinse) 1560 and 1563; ii., in the preface of the first 
volume of the Wittenberg Edition of his works, 1560 and 1601 ; 
Hi. j in the Corpus Reformatorum, vol. ix., No. 6932 — these are in 
Latin; iv., the German Preface is found in the German Corpus, 
1560. All these texts have been carefully compared. 

I. In giving an account of the preparation of the Confession of 
what he styles "Luther's Doctrine," Melanchthon says that he does 
so ' ' because it is necessary that posterity should know, that our 
Confession was not written as an individual matter. The princes 
and officials whose names follow the Confession, believed that it 
should be offered as evidence that they had not acted in levity, or 
impelled by any unlawful desire, but that for the glory of God and 
the salvation of their own souls, and the souls of many, they had 
embraced the purer doctrine." 

II. "I brought together, therefore, in singleness of purpose, the 



DISCUSSION. 239 

principal points of the Confession, which is extant, embracing 
pretty nearly the sum of the doctrine of our Churches." 

III. "I assumed nothing to myself. For in the presence of the 
Princes and other officials, and of the preachers, it was discussed 
and determined upon in regular course, sentence by sentence." 

IV. "The complete form (tota forma) of the Confession was 
subsequently (deinde) sent to Luther, who wrote to the Princes that 
he had both read the (literally this, hanc) Confession, and approved 
it." 

V. " That these things were so, the Princes and other honest 
and learned men, yet living, will remember." 

VI. " After this (postea ), before the Emperor Charles, in a great 
assembly of the Princes, this Confession was read." 

This passage of Melanchthon was adduced to confute the 
theory of Riickert, that the Augsburg Confession was meant to be 
a compromise with Rome, and was consequently kept back from 
Luther, for fear he would spoil the scheme. We think we may 
claim that the citations in the Conservative Reformation (228-232) 
have disposed of Riickert's theory. Those inclined to favor it have 
made a little battle on the point now before us, but if they could 
sustain their denial, so far as to throw it entirely out, they would 
simply remove it from an argument which is convincing without it. 
But it is evident, further, that the moral value of this citation, for 
its purpose, is by no means dependent on any question of date. If 
we were to grant that it does not prove a third sending of the 
Confession to Luther, it yet proves that what Melanchthon iden- 
tifies with the Augsburg Confession as delivered, was read and 
approved by Luther before it was presented. His whole statement 
is reduced to falsehood or nonsense on any other supposition. 

The question of dates, then, becomes one simply of chronological 
interest, and here, if it be granted that Melanchthon is a competent 
witness, there is no great hazard in taking up the glove so daunt- 
lessly thrown down, unless the date, June 2d, be the main point. 
Note then: 



24O FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

i. That what Luther passed upon is denned as the "Confession, 
now extant," which Melanchthon, quoting in substance its own 
phrase, characterizes as "embracing pretty nearly the sum of the 
doctrine of our churches." 1 This implies that the Confession, when 
Luther's judgment was given, was in such a state of substantial 
completeness as to make it morally identical with the one delivered. 

2. It is expressly and emphatically said, so as to be essential to 
Melanchthon's whole argument, that the iC tola forma" the com- 
plete Confession — as contrasted with any earlier and imperfect form 
of the Confession, was sent to Luther. 

3. It was sent after the discussion and determination of it, in reg- 
ular order, article by article as it came, and sentence by sentence, 
before and by princes, officials and theologians. 

4. It was returned by Luther with a letter to the Princes, saying 
that he approved it. 

5. After this return of this Complete Confession, it was presented 
(June 25th) to Charles V. 

Let us now see how these facts bear on the question of dates. 

1. The endorsement of Luther, of which Melanchthon's Preface 
speaks, can not be of the Confession sent May nth. 2 That was 
not the " tola forma" but relatively unfinished : that had not been 
discussed before the princes, officials and preachers, for they were not 
yet present. The Landgrave of Hesse came May 12 ; the Nurem- 
bergers May 15, and others still later. Nor was it then meant that 
the Confession should be made in the name of all the Evangelical 
States. It was to be limited to Saxony. The Elector wrote to 
Luther, May n, sending him the Confession, treating it purely as 
a matter in his own hands, and the hands of his theologians, and 

1 In Melanchthon's Preface : Complexus paene summam doclrinae Ecclesi- 
arum nostrum. In the Confession (xxii.) : Haec fere summa est doctrinae 
apud nos ; in the German : " in unserm Kirchtn ;" and again in the epilogue, 
doctrinse summa. 

2 Melanchthon's Letter; Corpus Reformator., ii., No. 685. Coelestinus, 
., 41 a. 



DISCUSSION. 241 

giving Luther unlimited right to adapt it to his judgment of what 
was best. 3 Luther's reply to this letter (May 15) 4 was not, and 
could not be, to the princes, but was to John of Saxony alone, 
who, up to May 11 (with his suite), was the only one of the princes 
at Augsburg, and who, as his letter shows, expected to deliver this 
very Confession of May 1 1 to the Emperor. 

2. But neither can Melanchthon's words refer to the copy sent 
May 2 2d. George of Brandenburg did not come till May 24th. 
May 24th Pontanus, the Chancellor of Saxony, was taking part in 
finishing the Confession, as purely in the hands of Saxony. 

May 28th, the Saxon theologians and counsellor were alone in 
examining the Confession. Up to June 8th the Confession had 
been worked upon exclusively in the name of the Elector of Sax- 
ony, and is styled the "Saxon Counsel" (Rathschlus) or Statement 
(Verzeichniss), and designated as the work of the "Saxon theolo- 
gians," by the Nuremberg Legates, up to June 8, 5 and retrospec- 
tively even up to June 15 th. 6 

The movement was now made, that the entire body of the Prot- 
estants (Lutherans) should be conjoined with the Elector, in offer- 
ing the Confession "in the name of all the United Lutheran Princes 
and Estates," requiring the substitution throughout of a general 
term, in place of the exclusive reference to Saxony. 7 Not until 
after May 2 2d, therefore, could that conjoint discussion in the pres- 
ence of the Princes and other officials have taken place, which 
Melanchthon declares preceded the sending to Luther of that tota 

3 The Elector to Luther : Corpus Reformat., ii., No. 798. Luther's Werke, 
Leipzig, xx., 173; Walch. } xvi., 785. 

4 Luther to the Elector; Briefe : De Witte., iv., 17. Werke: Leipzig, xx., 
p. 173. Walch. xvi., 786. Chytraeus Historia (German), xxviii, p. 3c. Ir. 
Latin, Coelestinus i., 40-42. Buddeus, 93. 

5 Corpus Reformat., ii., No. 712, 715. 

6 Do., No 723. 

7 Do. do. See Libri Symbolic. Eccl. Luth., Ed. Francke, 1847. Prolego- 
mena ; xviii., No. 16. 



242 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

forma, which he identifies with the Confession read before the 
Emperor and then extant. 

Rev. Dr. Greenwald, the author of the next paper, was unable to 
be present. Rev. D. H. Geissinger appeared as his representative, 
with the essay that had been prepared. Owing to the necessity 
which would not allow the presence, beyond Friday evening, of 
several of the remaining essayists, the Diet, with great regret, sus- 
pended the regular order. It was hoped that time would still be 
found for Dr. Greenwald's essay, at a succeeding place. But as all 
the time of the Diet, up to the adjournment, was filled by the re- 
maining essays, and it became manifest that an additional session 
could not be held on Saturday morning, it was resolved to print 
Dr. Greenwald's essay in the proceedings. It is accordingly given 
in the place where it properly belongs. 



TRUE AND FALSE SPIRITUALITY IN THE 
LUTHERAN CHURCH. 

BY REV. E. GREENWALD, D. D., LANCASTER, PA. 

THE Apostle Paul describes sound Christians, as contradistin- 
guished from others who are not sound, by applying to them 
the expression, "Ye which are spiritual." Gal. 6 : i. 

Who are They That are Spiritual? 

The word "spiritual" both in the original Greek and in our 
English translation is derived from the word that designates the 
Holy Ghost, the divine Author of spiritual life in the soul of man. 
It denotes the effects produced in the soul, by the gracious influ- 
ences of the Holy Ghost. It means spiritual in opposition to car- 
nal — heavenly-minded in distinction from worldly-minded — a de- 
vout, pious, godly spirit, the reverse of a prayerless, irreligious, 
sensual spirit. A spiritual man is a godly man ; one who loves 
God, communes with God, bears the image of God, has the spirit 
of God. A spiritual man possesses deep spirituality, cultivates fer- 
vent devotion, and has the same mind in him that was in Christ. 
A spiritual man is a man of sound piety, relishes the presence of 
God, and walks in near and most intimate fellowship with God. A 
spiritual man has the mind of God, breathes the spirit of God, 
lives the life of God. 

This spiritual nature results from the mystical union with Christ, 
which is effected by the grace of the Holy Spirit in His application 
of Christ's redemption to man. Union with God is the work of the 
Holy Ghost. By His mighty working in the heart of man, through 
the Word of God, which is spirit and life, through the Holy 
Sacrament of Baptism, by which Christ is put on and the man 
is made a partaker of Christ's life, and through the Holy Sacra- 
ment of the Lord's Supper, by which Christ's body and blood 
nourishes and develops and matures the divine life in the soul, this 
mystical union is brought about and continued. God dwells in the 
believer. 

(243) 



244 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

This union with Christ is directly taught in many passages of 
God's Word. Christ Himself says, John xiv : 23, "If a man love me 
he will keep my words, and my Father will love him, and we will 
come unto him and make our abode with him." Paul says, 1 Cor. 
vi : 15-17, '-'Know ye not that your bodies are the members of 
Christ ?" " for two shall be one flesh. But he that is joined to the 
Lord is one spirit." Eph. v : 30 : "For we are members of his 
body, of his flesh, and of his bones." Gal. ii : 20. "I am crucified 
with Christ, nevertheless I live ; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; 
and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the 
Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." Peter says, 
2 Peter i : 4, "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and 
precious promises, that by these ye might be partakers of the 
divine nature." From these, and many other passages of like 
import, we learn the great doctrine of the mystical union of the be- 
liever with God. It is the source of all true spiritual life in him. 
He is " spiritual " because he sustains this relation to Christ, has 
this union with Him, and lives not his own life, but Christ's life in 
him. 

By this indwelling of God in man, is meant more than the resem- 
blance of man's spirit to God's spirit, or the conformity of man's 
will to the divine will. This, of course, exists in the case of all 
true believers in Christ. But the relation of regenerated man to 
God, and the nature of spiritual life in him, are more substantial 
and thorough than even this. It will be profitable to quote on this 
point, the matured sentiments of some of the old divines of our 
Church. 

Says Quenstedt, that prince of 'theologians : "The mystical union 
does not consist merely in the harmony and tempering of the affec- 
tions, as when the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, 
1 Sam. xviii : 1, but in a true, real, literal, and most intimate union; 
for Christ uses the expression, * as thou, Father, art in me, and I in 
thee, that they also may be one in us. ' To be in some one, implies 
the real presence of the thing which is said to be in, not figuratively, 
as a lover in the beloved." 

' ' The mystical union is the real and most intimate conjunction of 
the substance of the Sacred Trinity and the God-man Christ, with the 
substance of believers, effected by God Himself through the Gospel, 
the Sacraments, and faith by which, through a special approxima- 



DR. GREENWALD S ESSAY. 245 

tion of His essence, and by a gracious operation, He is in them, 
just as also believers are in Him, that, by a mutual and reciprocal 
immanence, or indwelling, they may partake of His vivifying power, 
and all His mercies, become assured of the grace of God and eternal 
salvation, and preserve unity in the faith, and love, with all the 
other members of His mystical body." 

Calovius, another of our old divines, says : " The mystical union 
of Christ with the believer, is a true, and real, and most intimate 
conjunction of the divine and human nature of the theanthropic 
Christ with a regenerated man, which is effected by the virtue of 
the merit of Christ through the Word and Sacraments; so that 
Christ constitutes a spiritual unit with the regenerated person, and 
operates in him, and through him ; and those things which the be- 
liever does or suffers, He appropriates to Himself, so that the man 
does not live, as to his spiritual and divine life, of himself, but by 
the faith of the Son of God, until he is taken to heaven." 

In the Formula of Concord, the assertion that " not God him- 
self, but only the gifts of God, dwell in believers," is designated as 
false. It is further declared, that "the essence of the subjects to be 
united are on the one part, the divine substance of the whole 
Trinity, and the substance of the human nature of Christ. On the 
other part, the substance of believers, as to body and soul." 

This mystical union with Christ, as thus described, being God 
dwelling in us, and united with us, a partaking of the divine na- 
ture, having the life of Christ living in us, so that the motions of 
godly living are not our own, but Christ's, who is our life — this 
union with Christ is the well spring of all our spiritual character. 
It is the source of its existence, and constitutes its peculiar nature. 
Christians are spiritual because God dwells in them, and the life 
they life in the flesh is not their own, but Christ's who liveth in 
them. 

Concerning this union with Christ as the source and spring of 
our spiritual life, we remark several things : 

1. It is not Natural. 
The natural spirit, and disposition, and life, in man, are directly 
the reverse of this. Our natural birth is a birth in sin, with a de- 
praved nature, and with a spirit that is carnal, sensual, worldly, and 
devilish. The natural mind receiveth not these things, is hostile to 



246 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

them; they are foolishness to it; and because they are spiritually dis- 
cerned, it, not being spiritual, but carnal, cannot discern, or appre- 
ciate, or exercise them. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, 
that only which is born of the spirit is spirit. 

2. It is not the Result of Human Will, or Power, or Work. 

As it is a new or spiritual birth, in contradistinction to the natural 
birth, it is expressly declared by St. John to be a spiritual man, 
produced by "the power of God," and "born, not of blood, nor 
of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." It 
is a spiritual creation. Being the opposite of a human birth, it is 
necessarily a divine birth. 

3. // is the Work of the Holy Ghost. 
The divine agent that produces it, is the Spirit of God. He that 
works all our works in us, is the Holy Ghost. Being the spirit of 
life, He gives spiritual life to us, — as the Holy Ghost he sanctifies 
us — as the third Person of the God-head, He makes us partakers of 
the divine nature. What He does, God does, for the Holy Ghost 
is God. 

4. The Holy Ghost does this only through the Blessed Means of 
Grace, His Word and Sacraments. 
The Word is one of the means of grace, which " acts by a true, 
real, divine, and ineffable influx of its gracious power, so that it 
effectually and truly converts, illuminates and unites with Christ, 
the Holy Spirit operating in, with, and through it, thus constituting 
it a divine, and not a human word." Jesus himself says, "My 
words, they are spirit, and they are life." Baptism, which is a Sa- 
crament, not of one element, water, only, but of two elements, 
water and the Holy Ghost, is another means of grace, through 
which grace is given; we are baptized into Christ, put on Christ, 
become children of God, and are made to partake of the divine 
nature, for Jesus expressly called it being "born again of water and 
of the Holy Ghost,'' John hi. 5 ; and St. Paul directly describes it as 
being the "washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy 
Ghost." The Lord's Supper, too, is a means of grace, and aids in 
promoting this union with Christ, and divine life in the soul, since 
Jesus, in obvious reference to this Sacrament, and to its spiritual 
effects, declares, "Except ye eat the flesh, and drink the blood of 



DR. GREENWALD S ESSAY. 247 

the Son of man, ye have no life in you." Here " spirit," " regen- 
eration," "life," are asserted to be produced by the Holy Ghost, 
through these means of grace instituted for the purpose, and by 
which His operations in, and upon, the nature of man are wrought. 

5 . This Spiritual Nature is a Divine Nature. 
Not that there is in regenerated man such a union of the two 
natures, as the union of the divine and human natures in Christ, 
constituting one person. "Nor," says Quenstedt, "does this union 
consist in transubstantiation, or the conversion of our substance 
into the substance of God and of Christ, or vice versa, as the rod 
of Moses was converted into a serpent. Nor in consubstantiation, 
so that of two united essences there is formed one substance." 
Says Hollazius, " (a) God dwells in us as in temples, by the favor 
of the mystical union, 1 Cor. iii. 16; but the habitation is not 
changed into the inhabitant, nor the inhabitant into the habitation. 
(Ji) By the mystical union we put on Christ, Gal. iii. 2 7 ; but the 
garment is not essentially one with the person who wears it. (V) 
The divine nature is very distinct from the human, although God 
comes to us and makes His abode with us, John xiv. 23, for He can 
depart from man to whom He has come." Whilst all these errors 
are carefully avoided, yet this union consists, says the Formula of 
Concord, "in a true, real, intrinsic, and most close conjunction of 
the substance of the believer with the substance of the Holy Trin- 
ity, and the flesh of Christ." "Two things, therefore, pertain to 
the form of the mystical union," says Calovius. "(1) A true and 
real adiastasia; a nearness, through the approximation of the divine 
essence to the believer, whereby the triune God comes to us and 
makes His abode with us, which is not then merely a naked operation 
without the approach of God, but a nearer access to us, or an advent, 
that He may be and remain in us, John xiv. 23. (2) A gracious 
energy or operation, whereby God comes to us and dwells in us, 
that He fills us with all the fullness of His spiritual wisdom, holiness, 
power (Eph. iii. 19), and other divine gifts (Ch. iv. 7); which 
denotes also the mystical perichoresis, whereby God is in us, and 
remains through grace ; but we are in God, and adhere to Him in 
trust, so that nothing can separate us from God, who are united to 
Him through trust, Rom. viii. 38, seq" It is really and truly, God 
dwelling in us, and we in God. 



248 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

6. // is a Genuine Spiritual Nature, as opposed to all False 

Spiritualism. 
There is a spiritualism that is not genuine spirituality. "Ye that 
are spiritual," in the mouth of a holy apostle, is a very different 
thing from that which is meant by many men who use the same 
words. There is a spiritualism that claims to be the highest spirit- 
uality, and that denies spirituality to anything else than itself, that 
is, in almost every respect, a very different thing from true spirit- 
uality. " Sie haben einen andereit Geist," said Luther, concerning 
a class of men in his time, who professed to be far more spiritual 
than himself, who even condemned his want of spirituality, and 
who pretended to divine inspiration, to visions, and to extraor- 
dinary fervor of devotion. This spiritualism is self-righteous, 
proud, censorious, extravagant, unsacramental, unchurchly, often 
sensual and lax in moral strictness, and often ends in an utter ship- 
wreck of faith, and in the entire abandonment of the Church, and 
its holy Sacraments. This is necessarily a false and perverted spir- 
itualism. It is an unhappy and deplorable development of the re- 
ligious emotions. The Lutheran Church in this country has suf- 
fered from it in many places. The injurious effects of it have not 
yet wholly passed away. It needs to be strenuously guarded against 
and avoided, as a most insidious enemy to true and sound godliness. 

7. True Spirituality is in Entire Harmony with the Evangelical 
System of Doctrine, Duty, and Church Order. 

It is interesting and instructive to trace the contrast between true 
and false spirituality, in their relation to all that is true and sound 
in the doctrines of our holy Christianity. Such a tracing of the 
marks of contrast between the two, will enable us to have a just 
conception of both, and to distinguish between the one that is 
sound and the other that is unsound. Let me invite attention to 
such an examination. 

(a.) The relation of spirituality to our justification before God. 

Our justification is our judicial acquittal before God's judgment, 
of the charge of sin, and our release from condemnation, and the 
forgiveness of our sins on the ground of Christ's vicarious right- 
eousness, appropriated by faith. The true and sound spiritural 
affections which this doctrine develops in the heart of a true 
believer, are humble trust in Christ, love to God for this unspeaka- 



DR. GREENWALD S ESSAY. 249 

ble blessing, hearty gratitude, self renunciation, deep humiliation of 
soul, sincere sorrow for sin and hatred to it, and in general, a sense 
of utter unworthiness, and the disposition to place itself very low 
down at the foot of the cross. This abasement of soul, this renun- 
ciation of all merit or claim of any kind, this humble looking to 
Jesus alone for salvation and eternal life, draws the affections very 
near to a crucified Saviour, and brings them into very sweet com- 
munion with His spirit. There is also produced in the soul, an 
intense feeling of the odiousness of sin, and of hatred to it, on 
account of the great sufferings endured by the Saviour in order to 
redeem us from it. It therefore leads to true holiness of heart and 
life, moved thereto by the purest and best of all motives, the love 
of Jesus. The soul thus brought to the foot of the cross, stays 
there, and has no desire to get away from it. It does not f 'get 
through" any process of religious experience, by which it can now 
at length dispense with the blood of Jesus shed on the cross, con- 
stantly applied, for the remission of its sins. Its progress in holi- 
ness is rather the constant deepening of the consciousness that it 
daily needs the blood of Jesus Christ, to cleanse it from all sin. 
This feeling of humble, trustful, daily and hourly leaning upon 
Christ crucified, for mercy and grace, and for the hope of salvation 
and eternal life, is inexpressibly tender, precious and comforting to 
the soul. This is true, sound evangelical spirituality, in full har- 
mony with the life of God in the soul, and is ardently cherished by 
every heart that is really spiritual after apostolic example. 

In two essential points particularly, a false spiritualism differs 
from a true and sound spirituality, in its relation to the doctrine of 
Justification by Faith. The one is the claiming for itself a personal 
sinlessness that diminishes its estimate of the absolute and indispen- 
sable necessity of the vicarious merits of Jesus for its acceptance 
with God; and the other is the feeling that, however much it needed 
the atonement of Christ's blood for the forgiveness of the sins com- 
mitted before its conversion, it can now, since its conversion, 
dispense largely, if not wholly, with the application of that blood, 
and can live so free from sin as not to need its daily and hourly 
virtue, to keep the soul clean from its defilement. It is remarkable 
how changed is, at once, the language of an individual who, from a 
true and sound position on the doctrine of Justification, is brought 
under the influence of an erroneous spiritualism. Instead of 
17 



25O FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Christ's redemption, His blood shed, His mercy offered, His obedi- 
ence rendered, His righteousness imputed, His forgiveness ex- 
tended, being the themes dearest to the heart and readiest in the 
discourse, the entire subject of thought and speech is, what the indi- 
vidual has felt, what raptures he has experienced, what readiness in 
prayer he enjoys, what freedom from sin he has attained, how ear- 
nestly he serves God, and the like feelings and expressions, all 
centering upon self, and glorifying, not the Saviour, but the man. 
From being at the foot of the cross, content to stay there and look 
with an humble and self renouncing faith up to Christ on the cross, 
as all his righteousness, he seems to have climbed up until he has got 
above the cross and can dispense with the blood shed, the righteous- 
ness acquired, and the sacrifice offered on it by the Saviour. Such 
a spiritualism as this is self-righteous, vain, unevangelical, false, and 
exceedingly dangerous to the soul that cherishes it. 

(b) The relation of spirituality to the sacraments of the 
Church. 

The Sacraments are essential to both individual and Church 
Christian life. They meet the soul at the beginning of its spiritual 
life, and they attend it to the close, when God calls it to His 
everlasting kingdom. By a holy Sacrament the gracious germ-life 
is implanted, and by a holy Sacrament that growing life is nour- 
ished, and strengthened, and developed, and matured until it be- 
comes ripe for heaven. True spirituality greatly values the Sacra- 
ments. It prepares for the reception of the Holy Communion, and 
the Holy Communion increases and strengthens it. Through the 
Lord's Supper the soul enjoys its nearest and sweetest communion 
with God. Its enjoyment is tender, subdued, self- renouncing, de- 
vout, holy. It is then nearer to Jesus than it can be at any other 
place or on any other occasion. It relishes this communion of spirit 
with Christ's spirit, this feeling of nearness to its Lord, this partic- 
ipation of Christ's most precious grace and blessing at the Lord's 
table, beyond the power of words to express it. It is never more 
truly spiritual, devout, and heavenly minded, than at the Commun- 
ion Table. And this spiritual feeling is in its nature the purest, 
most god-like and heavenly, that can be conceived, because it 
flows out directly from the divine life in the soul, is in completest 
harmony with it, and is constituted by it what it is. 

A false spirituality, on the contrary, depreciates the Sacraments, 



DR GREEN WALD'S ESSAY. 25 I 

undervalues their necessity, takes from them their heavenly element, 
degrades them to the condition of mere rites and ceremonies, finds 
in them a chill, rather than an incitement to devotion, and in many 
instances, either defers them, or dispenses with them altogether. By 
such an erroneous spiritualism, they are put very far into the back- 
ground. Other methods and instrumentalities, devised by human 
minds, seem much better adapted than they are to awaken devo- 
tion, to excite feeling, to kindle fervor, and to promote spiritual 
religion. They are regarded as mere outward forms that lead to 
formality, empty ceremonies that convey no grace, dampeners to 
rapturous emotion, and that produce in those who are not very 
much on their guard, a dead, godless, sacramental religion. Ac- 
cording to this view of the relation of the Sacraments to spirituality, 
God's institutions have been found wanting, and man's inventions 
are much better adapted than they are, to promote vital godliness. 

(V) The relation of spirituality to the doctrines of Christianity. 

Sound doctrine is essential to sound Christianity. True practice 
must necessarily be founded upon true principles. The spirit of the 
mind is influenced and constituted by the governing principles en- 
tertained by the mind. Sound thinking, so far from being a hin- 
drance to true devotion, aids and promotes it. An enlightened and 
safe judgment is essentially valuable as a regulator of the feelings, 
which are usually variable and impatient of control. There is no 
necessary antagonism between right thinking, right feeling, and 
right doing. Indeed, it is only when all these are well proportioned, 
and well balanced in any man, that he is the best specimen of what 
a man should be. A sound orthodox Christian is, and necessarily 
must be, a sound spiritual Christian. His orthodoxy helps his 
spirituality. His piety is sound because his faith is sound. His 
devout feelings are right, because his correct knowledge and enlight- 
ened judgment regulate them properly, and control them aright. 
He lays a sanctified intellect upon God's altar. His head, and 
heart, and life, present a well-proportioned and divinely symmetri- 
cal Christian. His devotions spring from his faith. Having the 
true Christian faith, he breathes the spirit of true Christian devotion. 
There is no conflict between his faith and his devotions, but as the 
one is pure, so the others are sound. 

An erroneous spiritualism, on the contrary, has relaxed and easy 
notions about the faith. One of its ready maxims declares, "It 



252 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

matters not what a man's opinions are, so only his heart is converted, 
and his practice is right." It forgets that practice is governed by 
principles, and that as is the faith, such also are the devotions that 
spring from it. It is the faith of the Hindoo that produces the 
superstitious'devotions of the Hindoo ; it is Mohammedan faith 
that constitutes the peculiar religious spirit of the Moslem worship- 
er ; and it is from the true faith of Christ that the intelligent, pure, 
and Christ-like spirit of the Christian's devotions springs. The 
spiritualism that undervalues sound doctrine, that confounds the 
true and the false, that exalts feeling above knowledge, that places 
practice in antagonism to principle, that sacrifices the faith in the 
interest of spirituality, and that considers it necessary to overthrow 
the pure faith of the Church in order to advance the cause of vital 
godliness in the Church, is a spiritualism that is erroneous, unsafe, 
and that needs to be carefully guarded against. However specious 
may be its pretensions, it is not the true spirituality of Christ and 
His apostles, or which will promote, in the end, the best and most 
enduring interests of Christianity, and the Christian Church. Let 
a man be alike sound in doctrine, devout in spirit, and holy in life, 
and we have in him the highest and best style of a Christian, after 
the pattern of Christ, of the Holy Apostles, and of the best and 
holiest men in all ages of the Christian Church. 

(//) The relation of spirituality to the order and service of the 
Church. 

The Church is the Body of Christ, and Christians are mem- 
bers of His Body. As the life -of the body is the life of the 
members, and the members live because the body lives, so the life 
that lives and moves and acts in the hearts of Christians, is the life 
of the Son of God Himself. Our union with Christ, the Head, is 
through His Body, the Church. True evangelical spirituality is 
churchly — necessarily churchly. It is through the Church that we 
come to Christ, in the Church that we find Christ, and by means of 
the Church that we have the faith, and spirit, and life of Christ. 
In the Church we have the word of Christ, the ministry of Christ, 
the Sacraments of Christ, the worship of Christ, the service and 
obedience of Christ. All the means for the origination, the pro- 
gress, and the perfection of spiritual life in the souls of men, are 
found in the Church. These means of grace produce the true 
spirit of devotion in the heart. They draw the soul into close and 



DR. GREENWALD S ESSAY. 253 

intimate communion and fellowship with God. The Christian 
comes very near to God in the reading and hearing of His Word, 
in the confession of sin, in the profession of faith, in the prayers 
offered, in the hymns sung. The spirit of devotion which is 
thereby produced is intelligent, reverent, solemn, pure. It is ten- 
der, delightful, holy. God is felt to be in the place, and the pres- 
ence of God is inexpressibly dear to the soul. The forms of the 
Church service express the sentiments and feelings of the worshiper, 
and his holiest and happiest thoughts go along with them from 
the first silent prayer on entering, to the last silent prayer before 
leaving, the sanctuary. They are not barren, lifeless forms. They 
are used devoutly, and they foster in the breast the purest spirit 01 
devotion. 

A false spirituality overleaps the settled order and forms of 
Christianity, and is a wild and erratic law unto itself. It is the 
creature of impulse. Its action is spasmodic. It is wholly emo- 
tional. It feels so, and therefore it is right. It will not be 
restrained by forms, nor hampered by ceremony, nor controlled by 
rules of order. Like the untamed steed of the plains, it will rear, 
and plunge, and rush forward at its own sweet will. Said one of 
this class to me recently, "I have got above all churches." It 
chose its own way, and no longer needed God's way, or institutions, 
or sacraments, or Church, or help It had got above all these. It 
is not only restless under the restraints of the forms of a sound 
churchliness, but despises and denounces them as dead formalism, 
high churchism, a cold sacramental religion. Even when yielding 
to their observance, it has no reverence for them. Indeed, the 
spirit of irreverence in the Church, in the pew, in the pulpit, at 
prayer, at the Communion table, and at every part of divine service, 
is one of the most marked peculiarities of an erroneous spirituality. 
This spirit of irreverence in the most sacred places, and during the 
most solemn services, is shocking to a truly devout and spiritually 
minded Christian, and it is a sure evidence that the spirit that leads 
to it is unsound and false. 

(e) The relation of spirituality to the duty of prayer. 

A spiritual mind is a devout mind. The spirit of devotion is 
essential to spirituality. A pious mind is a mind imbued with the 
spirit of prayer. It delights in communion with God. The con- 
sciousness of God's presence with it, is very pleasing to a godly 



254 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

heart. It cherishes the thought that God is near it; it draws nigh 
in spirit to God's Spirit; it loves to feel that it is alone with God, in 
the closet and in other places of solitude ; and the fellowship of soul 
with God, in all the public and private exercises of devotion, is 
very dear and precious. This spirit of devotion is subdued, tender, 
shrinking from observation, humble, self-abased, calm, pure. The 
best ideal I have before my mind is that of a sainted mother, as I 
often saw her in my childhood, sitting in her chamber, with her 
German Bible, or Arndt's Paradies-Gaertlein, or Stark's Handbuch 
before her. All was quiet around her; her own person was mo- 
tionless, with her head resting on her hand, her face beamed forth 
seriousness, gentleness and peace; her eyes were fixed upon the 
page, and often the tear-drop swelled under the eyelid, coursed 
down her cheek, and fell on and wetted the page she was perusing. 
It was calm, subdued, tender, lowly, sincere, genuine, spiritual 
communion with God. It was spirituality of the old sort, without 
pretense, sound and holy, such as would necessarily proceed from 
the life of God in the soul. It was itself pure and holy, and it 
made its subject purer and holier. 

In contradistinction to this, a false spirituality is bold, obtrusive, 
noisy, demonstrative, sensational, self-righteous, and relaxed in 
moral strictness. It seeks to work itself up to a high pitch of ex- 
travagant emotion, by the labored heaving of the breast, the affected 
tones of the voice, the violent rubbing together of the hands, and 
other bodily demonstrations, forced and unnatural. As of old, so 
now, it delights to display itself before the crowd, at the corners of 
the streets, and to gain the applause of men. It is proud of itself, 
condemnatory of another spirit better than itself, and passes easily 
from the most extravagant demonstrations of devoutness, to exces- 
sive lightness both of language and demeanor. Even when these 
objectionable traits exist in much less degree, it is still a spirit differ- 
ing essentially from the genuine and holy spirituality which lived in 
the heart of Jesus, and because it lived there, lives also in the heart 
of all His faithful followers. 

It now only remains for me to say that the Apostle's words, "Ye 
which are spiritual," should be descriptive of every human being. 
They should truly describe us as ministers and members here assem- 
bled. They should describe the entire Church of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, of which we are members and ministers, and which we 



DR. GREENWALDS ESSAY. 255 

love. The Church should never lack a sound and genuine spiritu- 
ality. True spirituality should never be wanting, either by its 
place being usurped by a false spiritualism, or by the heart being 
sunk into a sad state of irreligiousness and want of fervent devo- 
tion. Let us carefully guard against the error of letting sound 
spirituality decline in our hearts, because others exhibit a spiritual- 
ity that is unsound. Let the Church conscientiously cultivate the 
old devout spirit of the venerable fathers of the Reformation era. 
It is sometimes objected that the advocacy of the old faith of the 
Church, and of the old and wholesome Church service and Church 
order, is inconsistent with the maintenance of a high tone of spir- 
ituality in the Church. We believe the allegation to be false. We 
believe that a sound Lutheran faith, a wholesome Church order, 
and a high-toned spirituality, are not antagonistic, but exist neces- 
sarily together. Let all unite to prove, in our preaching, in our 
personal experience, and in the spirit prevalent in our congrega- 
tions, that the true faith as held by the Church, is a living faith, 
that a wholesome Church service is the helper and not the enemy 
of fervent piety, and that the Word of God, as believed and 
preached by the fathers, has now, as then, the power to produce 
and maintain the sound godliness of the fathers. It is desirable 
that this spirit should pervade every part of the Church. It should 
be breathed in the pastor's sermons, in his catechetical lectures, in 
his private admonitions to the young and the old. It should be 
cherished in the hearts of ministers, in the breasts of our members, 
in the homes of our children, in the Sunday-school classes, in the 
chambers of the sick and dying. It should be impressed upon the 
hearts of all our theological students as they sit in the recitation 
rooms of our seminaries, and it ought to be earnestly cultivated by 
them not only in the morning and evening prayers in the chapel, 
but also in their study rooms, and in their retired chambers. The 
want of a sound spirit of devotion is a sad preparation for the active 
duties of the ministry. Let the spirit of devotion be cultivated by 
parents and children in all our families, by the regular morning and 
evening prayers, by the offering of grace at meat, by retired closet 
devotions, and in all suitable times and ways, in the sanctuary and 
out of it. Let us read God's Word devoutly, believe devoutly, 
pray devoutly, sing devoutly, preach devoutly, commune devoutly, 
live devoutly, animated and moved thereto by the life of God that 



256 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

dwells in us. We shall then be spiritual Christians after the pattern 
of Christ and His Apostles, of Luther and the Reformers, of the 
fathers of the Lutheran Church in this country, and of all, in 
every age, who truly believe in and love the name of our dear Lord 
Jesus Christ. 

The regular order having been suspended, it was resolved to hear 
the essay of Dr. Stork next. 



LITURGICAL FORMS IN WORSHIP. 

BY REV. C. A. STORK, D. D., BALTIMORE, MD. 

THE question of Liturgies is not a great question in Christi- 
anity, but it is one that can be solved only by an appeal to 
great Christian principle. The little finger is not a very important 
member, but its existence and function are determined by very im- 
portant structural facts in the body. 

How shall we worship God in public ? Shall we trust for order 
a?id matter to the inspiration of the hour ? Shall we prepare the 
order, and leave only the mode to the suggestion of the moment? Or, 
shall there be an established order, and a definite form of expression 
to be habitually observed? 

It is unfortunate, that these questions have been discussed for sev- 
eral centuries, now, in an atmosphere clouded by strong partisan 
feeling; and that they have been determined, for the most part, by 
an appeal either to mere tradition or to individual taste. As for the 
disturbance of judgment, that arises from the vehemence with which 
the subject has been discussed, that we can in no wise escape, unless 
we are prepared to give up discussing all matters in which we have 
a present, practical interest. All questions become personal questions 
when they enter the arena of life: the lumen siccum, that dry light 
of reason, that impersonal atmosphere, in which Bacon thought it 
so desirable that all unsettled questions should be viewed, is possible 
only to those subjects in which human beings have no interest. 
Human feeling will mix with all earnest human thinking. We 
must, therefore, accept the disabilities of our diverse ways of look- 
ing at things, and allow for the refraction caused by this heated 
atmosphere of strife as best we can. 

I do not think we can settle the question of Liturgies by a simple 
appeal to tradition. We may have the profoundest and tenderest 
reverence for antiquity, and yet find no reasonable vindication of a 
practice or belief in saying " Our fathers did so." We are contin- 
ually revising the doings and beliefs of our fathers, summoning them 
to the bar of great principles ; and irreverence towards the past lies 

( 2 57) 



258 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

not in revising its work, but in ignoring it, in refusing to consider 
it at all. So when it is said " Liturgic forms are the most adequate 
expression of public worship, because the Church has always used 
them," we are only summoned to review history and to ask, Has the 
Church always used them, and if so, why ? The Past lands an im- 
mense cargo at our feet; some of it is gold, some silver, much 
rubbish. And in all open questions like this of the use of Liturgi- 
cal forms, the business of a reasonable man is to inquire, what does 
antiquity in this case mean ? That the Church has almost exclu- 
sively poured her devotions through them is a very serious call to 
the consideration of the meaning of such catholic consent. But 
that use has not been exclusive. If it were true that she had always 
done so, if it were not an almost but an altogether, if there were no 
break in the tradition, then we would not be discussing the matter 
to-day. An unbroken tradition calls for no discussion ; the com- 
mon consent is the voucher of the very truth. But here the Church 
divides ; . she has divided for two centuries or more. And unless 
we are of those who think the voice of the Church of importance 
only before the 18th century, and of none since, we must take this 
divided testimony into account. 

As for the other, the purely modern, if I may so call it, the 
American method of determining the question by an appeal to in- 
dividual taste, this, it seems to me, is the most futile, the most puerile 
of all. This subjects the solemn business of approaching God in 
the worship of the great congregation to a private fancy, to an 
irresponsible individual whim. 

For a man to say " I will worship God with, or without, estab- 
lished forms, because I feel like it," is to say, "I will because I 
will," which has always been accounted a good feminine reason for 
conduct, but not one that commends itself to the rational, the mas- 
culine intellect. Acts of religion or worship that have no better 
reason for their performance than individual taste, are open to the 
objection that they are not worthy a rational creature to pay to a 
wise and holy God. If the only reason we can give for having 
prayers without a book is that we don't like a book, I am afraid, as 
those who have come to years of discretion, we shall have to give up 
our free forms. The reasoning of a great many good men against 
Liturgical forms in public worship, and of as many good men for 
Liturgical forms, viz., that they do, or do not, like them, has 
always seemed to me really childish. 



DR. STORKS ESSAY. 259 

But let us leave these reminiscences of battle, and approach the 
subject from what we may call the inside. 

Public Worship : what are the elements of it ? the formal 
elements, I mean. The matter, the substance of worship, is very- 
simple : adoration, praise, confession, petition, these are its material 
elements ; but the formal part, the mode of paying these, what is 
it? In private worship the formal element is very simple, too; 
whatever makes a bridge between the soul and its Creator (over 
which communication can pass), whatever opens a channel between 
the solitary soul and the Infinite Spirit, by which the two may 
mingle and commune, — this is all ; and each man must determine 
that for himself. But add the word public, and immediately it 
becomes something quite different. It is changed by the introduc- 
tion of two additional elements embraced in the word public. It is 
associated worship ; the act of a united body. The race, as it were, 
appears before its Maker to confess and adore. It is no longer in- 
dividual but corporate in its character, and hence invested with a 
solemnity, an august quality, such as cannot belong to the devotion 
of a solitary soul. With this goes also the indefinable sense of 
community, fellowship, the thrill of multitude, the harmony of souls 
uniting in the same act. Every one, I suppose, knows the difference 
between melody and harmony : there is in a harmonized chord, a 
something that never can be got out of a mere succession of notes, 
a melody. And so in the worship of the congregation, the rich, 
the poor, the high, the low, the little child, the old man, the sage, 
the peasant, there is a quality that is not the mere intensification of 
the individual's devotion ; it is a new quality ; it is " the Communion 
of Saints.'" 

If we keep these two elements in mind we shall see, I think, what 
change passes upon private worship in being made public. 

The solemn official quality of the Church approaching her Sover- 
eign, her Redeemer, her Head, must be there. 

And the sense of fellowship, of communion, the feeling not only 
of the Great Head above bending down and receiving, but the 
touch of brother against brother, the almost actual sense of fellow- 
ship, the devout thrill making all one, that too is there. 

Now it is these two elements, both present, both distinct, and 
yet blending into one in every act of public worship, it seems to 
me, that have determined the constant tendency in all religions to 



260 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

the use of Liturgical Forms. I take this stream of tendency for 
granted. It is found in all non-revealed religions. It is conspicuous 
in Judaism to the present day. In the early Christian Church it is 
too obvious to call for more than a mere passing notice. In the 
Mediaeval Church it was exclusive. Even in the Protestant Churches 
it has predominated. And now in those very Churches, the non- 
liturgical, in which for generations it was resisted and apparently 
overcome, it is making itself increasingly felt. It is simply a natural 
current channeled in the very constitution of man's religious 
nature, and nothing can ever permanently intercept it, or make it 
other than it is. Of the meaning of the tendency to abandon old 
established forms which was developed at the time of the Reforma- 
tion I shall speak presently. I believe it to have had a ground of 
reality : the repugnance to Liturgical Forms meant something. It 
is more than a revolt against forms too closely associated with cor- 
rupt doctrines. But of that farther on. But one thing is certain, 
that the dominant tendency in the Church Catholic in all ages has 
been to the use of Liturgical Forms. And that tendency, I repeat, 
is due to the influence of the two elements involved in the very idea 
of worship that is public. We will examine them separately. 

i . Public Service is, in a very real sense, the worship of the race. 
It is, so to speak, an official act. It is humanity appearing before 
God. No man I think can help feeling that, when he joins an assem- 
bly of earnest men engaged in worship. When they stand up or 
kneel down to pray, when together they confess or praise, there is 
a quality of solemnity, as of the transaction of some august cere- 
mony. The most violent defender of free prayer cannot escape 
the impression. Men may seek to root out the idea of ceremony 
as they will ; they may abolish vestments and postures ; they may 
pulverize orders of service and scatter the dust of them to the 
winds ; but as the idea of ceremony does not inhere in these, but 
only uses them as instruments, as garments in which to clothe itself, 
it will still remain in the assembly as a spirit. That is, it will 
remain as long as it is a truly worshiping assembly, a body of men 
consciously paying devotion to their Creator. A great many relig- 
ious assemblies are not worshiping at all ; they are meetings for 
teaching, for social intercourse, for the comparison of experience, 
for the enjoyment of religious emotions ; but as soon as they wor- 
ship when the prayer and praise, the adoration and confession 



DR. STORK'S ESSAY. 26 1 

begin — then the spirit of ceremony must be present. How can it 
be otherwise? There is the throne and He that sits thereon, and 
here are the creatures bowed and paying their homage. Involun- 
tarily the expression becomes stately, solemn, ceremonious ; or if 
it does not, the common consciousness of the worshiper is dis- 
turbed ; they revolt from the easy, familiar tone; they say "that 
prayer was irreverent." 

The natural effect of such a feeling, is to invest the approach to 
God with safe- guards that shall secure it from what is common and 
familiar. The leader of devotion will check his utterance. He 
will remember the words of the Wise Man, " God is in heaven, 
and thou upon earth : therefore let thy words be few." He will cut 
off rhetoric, and eschew hyperbole and extravagant expression. He 
becomes simple. Then, finding himself falling into faults of utter- 
ance from the hurry of the moment, he finds it necessary to choose 
his words before. You can follow out the process for yourself. It 
ends in the formation of a Liturgical Form. If a Church were to 
set out for itself de novo, with no knowledge and no prejudice drawn 
from the past, with only the Scriptures and the instincts of the relig- 
ious nature for the constructive forces, it would in process of time 
have a liturgical form of its own making. It would make an 
order, it would fix certain phrases, it would continually tend to a 
more absolutely established form even of words. It would do this 
because the solemn atmosphere of worship would call for just such 
an order. The instinct for Liturgical Forms, then, is rooted in 
man's religious nature. 

2. But there is another element in associated worship. Men do 
not worship together simply to make a public recognition of God, 
as an official act, so to speak. They worship together to satisfy the 
desire for fellowship. That desire is laid deep in human nature ; 
and the revelation of a new fellowship in Christ makes it still 
deeper. " We are all baptized into one body;" and that is "the 
body of Christ" And as members of that body we " are members 
one of another" Now of this new fellowship public worship is per- 
haps the most vivid, palpable realization we can have. It is as old 
as the little company in the beginning of the Christian Church; 
it is as new as the last Church service in which together we adored 
our God. We know the power of that common stream of worship 
in which we are borne as on a mighty current into regions of holy 



262 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

thoughts, and aspirations, and adorations, that we never reach 
alone. 

But what has this to do with the use of Liturgical Forms ? Would 
not the sense of fellowship be as vivid with a free prayer, a mova- 
ble order ? 

I answer, Yes, and No. 

Yes, so far as the Communion of Saints is expressed by that one 
assembly. 

No, when we reflect that the Communion of Saints embraces not 
only the Present, but also the Past : 

" Part of the host have crossed the flood, 
And part are crossing now." 

But it is one host, and the fellowship extends backward and up- 
ward, as well as to those on the earth with us now. This Commun- 
ion with the Church of the past, is not so palpable a fact as the 
fellowship with the Church of the present. But it is nevertheless a 
fact ; and the Church cannot with impunity ignore it. At times 
the Church has ignored it ; and always to its great loss. Thus the 
non-liturgical Churches, in turning their backs on the past, have 
broken the continuity of the Church. In so far they have destroyed 
that sense of solidarity of which we hear so much in secular circles, 
but which is realized in its fullness only in the Christian body. 
They have done so in past generations; but they are awaking to 
recognize their loss. They will be non-historic no longer. They 
are knitting again the broken strands. They are claiming their 
place in the continuity. They are welcome. It was our loss as 
well as theirs that the solidarity was ever broken. But this return 
shows us something. Christianity is not a force that dies to-day to 
rise again in another form tomorrow. It is not an isolated flame 
burning in the solitary soul or congregation, and then kindled in 
another solitary soul, or isolated congregation. The body is one, 
and the spirit is one. It leaps over barriers of Space and Time ; it 
diffuses itself through the long ranks of generations and centuries ; 
it fuses even diverse theologies and forms ; there is One Lord, One 
Faith, One Baptism. 

Now we may regard this great fact simply as a theological 
dogma, and speculate upon it, define it, draw it out. And that is 
well. But the Church has done more than that ; it has taken the 
fact up into its life. It has striven to bring it into more and more 



DR. STORK'S ESSAY. 263 

vivid and continual consciousness. It would not be a truth of doc- 
trine if the Christian body had not verified it by making it a truth 
of life. And how has it been realized ? Very largely by the use of 
Liturgical Forms. The Communion of Saints is brought to con- 
sciousness in one very intense way by the use in worship of the 
same order and forms ; nay, the very words and cadences used by 
the generations of the saints before us. There is a power in words. 
They are "winged," in Homer's subtle phrase, with the swift mo- 
tion and thrill of life. We know the power a word has to bring 
forth a vague thought, an elusive feeling : spoken, it is fixed, it 
comes forth out of the empty, the impalpable, into the concrete. 
We know, too, the power of old words; how a phrase, a cadence, a 
web of thought and feeling woven up in familiar expression, brings 
with it a power more than its own, a color, a fragrance, a warm 
breath, in which the dead words and phrases palpitate with a glow 
of life. 

Now we may analyze all this and label it association. But put- 
ting a name on a great process of the human spirit does not dissolve 
its mystery, nor abridge its power. It is association ; and that is 
just the secret of the power there lies in the use of an old Liturgy : 
the prayer, the praise, the confession, the adoration, are instinct 
with a life more than their own, the life of past generations, the 
life of the Church once breathed through them, and yet warm in 
them. It is a palpable, almost sensible realization of the mystic 
fellowship that runs through the Church universal. A prayer that 
has been prayed by my father, and before him by his father, and 
so for centuries backward gathers on its petitions the yearning 
breath of generation after generation, is a very different thing from 
the petition just made for me and uttered for the first time. 
Every word vibrates with the thrill of joys, sorrows, hopes, devout 
aspirations, once warm, and though past, not extinct. I feel in that 
vibration the harmony of the Christian fellowship through the ages, 
as in the sound of the voices praying or confessing by my side, I 
feel the harmony of the present communion of saints. So that our 
confessions and anthems, our collects and doxologies, do for the 
past what our public assembly and presence with each other do for 
the present — they make palpable, actual the Communion of Saints. 

I know this view is open to the criticism that it is purely specula- 
tive ; that, though it seems to be fact, it is not verifiable ; that men 



264 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

do not feel so. But it is just this which is contended ; that the 
reason the Church clings with such tenacity to its Liturgical Forms, 
is found in this sense of communion through them with the whole 
Church past and present. 

This is the meaning of the peculiar power the Anglican Service 
exercises over those who use it. Men explain the charm of this 
service by its beautiful literary form, its fine old English. But that 
would explain its fascination over the more cultured, not its hold 
on the unlettered — on the many who are insensible to the charm of 
style, or the rhythm of old English. No; it is because it has been 
the channel of devotion for so many successive generations, that it 
takes such deep hold of men to- day. These ancient prayers and 
responses, like an old musical instrument, are full of echoes from 
strains played on them by past generations. A great writer de- 
scribes a rustic going to the village church after the death of a beloved 
parent, and the effect the Liturgic service had upon him: "The 
Church Service was the best channel he could have found for his 
mingled regret, yearning and resignation ; its interchange of be- 
seeching cries for help, with outbursts of faith, and its recurrent 
responses and the familiar rhythm of its collects, seemed to speak 
for him as no other form of worship could have done." What was 
true of this sorrowing rustic is true of great bodies of men ; no pub- 
lic prayer or acts of worship, made for the special occasion, can 
ever afford what the old forms offer. True Liturgical Forms cannot 
be made at all ; they must grow. As each year adds another growth 
of branch to the tree, so wealth of fellowship accumulates genera- 
tion by generation on the ancient prayer, confession, litany. They 
are no longer the voice of one man, the minister ; they are not even 
the aggregated utterance of the present congregation only; they are 
full of echoes from the past; the Church of the Ages is heard 
praising, supplicating, adoring, through them. 

At this point in the preparation of this paper my attention was 
arrested by a paragraph bearing on the subj ect, which occurs in the 
Yale lectures of that distinguished non-conformist, Dr. Dale. 
Speaking of the conduct of public worship, he says that for some 
time he had "a mistaken impression that extemporaneous prayer 
might include — in addition to its own excellence — the characteristic 
excellence of a liturgy. But," he goes on to say, "we must make 
our choice. In extemporaneous prayer, the stateliness, the majesty, 



DR. STORK'S ESSAY. 265 

the aesthetic beauty of such a service as that of the Anglican Epis- 
copal Church, and the power which it derives from venerable 
associations, are impossible. We must be content with simplicity, 
directness, pathos, reverence, fervor ; and, if we are less vividly con- 
scious than those who use a Liturgy that we are walking in the foot- 
steps of the saints of other centuries, we may find compensation in 
a closer and more direct relation to the actual life of the men, 
women, and children, who are waiting with ourselves for the mercy 
and help and pity of God. We lose less than we may gain." " You 
cannot have the venerable association," says the antagonist of Litur- 
gical Forms; "but you may have something better, viz., the 
warmth and freedom of extemporaneous prayer." But is it better? 
If Dr. Dale and his friends would analyze what they mean by that 
vague generality, "venerable associations," they might find reason 
to change this comparative valuation. By " venerable associations" 
the non-liturgist means that pleasing sense of the picturesque which 
belongs to all that is past. It is put by him in the same category 
with old ruins, old family relics, mementos of distinguished persons 
of former ages. It belongs to the region of sentiment. It is classed 
along with "the stateliness, the majesty, the aesthetic beauty" of a 
Liturgy. They are all purely aesthetic qualities. But is that all 
that comes to us from the past ? Is our connection with the Church 
of former ages only a matter of sentiment, of aesthetic feelings? It 
is a great deal more. It is really a connection of the same nature 
as that which binds us to the Church of the present. And the 
depth of solemnity, the awe, the thrill, the sense of sacredness that 
we cannot but feel as we use these anthems and prayers and confes- 
sions worn with the devotions of ages of worshipers, is nothing less 
than the solemn realization of the Communion of the Saints. If that 
is what is meant by " venerable associations," then I say no " closer 
relation to the actual life of men and women" about us can ever 
make good its loss. No fellowship of the Church now existent, 
though intensified to the highest degree, can ever make up for that 
which is lost by breaking the continuity with the Church of the past. 
The very fact that the members of that body are no longer on the 
earth, but in heaven, gives a color, a quality, a tone to the devotion 
that uses their ancient form, which nothing else can supply. As 
well say that the fellowship of brothers and sisters living with us can 
supply the loss of father and mother. Every such quality is unique : 
18 



266 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

it is itself and not another ; and another cannot take its place, any 
more than a better quality of water will take the place of bread in 
supplying the wants of the body. 

To break up the order, to have something novel, is in so far to 
break the continuity of the Church. The fellowship is narrowed 
down ; the volume of worship is thinned ; we are once more cut 
loose from " the goodly fellowship of the prophets, the noble army 
of the martyrs, the holy Church throughout the world, that doth 
acknowledge God." 

That Public Worship will tend to make for itself an Established 
Liturgical Form, it seems to me, is one of those facts so deeply 
imbedded in our religious nature, that no revolt from it can ever 
be permanent. We are beginning to see the signs of a return from 
the great insurrection against form that marked the Puritan Revival. 
And now let us look at that revolt, and see what lesson it has for us. 

3. That revolt againt forms of worship, which spread through 
so many religious bodies, and modified the habits of even the 
Liturgical bodies, was not, I am persuaded, merely a diseased 
growth. To think so would be a kind of treason to human nature; 
it would be of the nature of schism, dividing the body of Christ on 
a mere side issue. The hatred of the Puritan for the Prayer- Book 
was not merely a sympathetic irritation, extending itself from his 
abhorrence of Prelacy and Romanizing doctrine. The Wesleyan 
revival knew nothing of Prelacy or Romish errors; and the strong 
impulse of the Church in America to a free form of public worship 
surely could not be credited to a sympathy with Puritanism or 
Independency. 

The revolt against Liturgical Forms was as really rooted in the 
religious nature as the tendency to establish forms. It was the form 
taken by the natural craving for a free prayer, the spontaneous up- 
lifting of the soul to God on the need and impulse of the hour. 
Dr. Dale is right when he says that something must be given up 
if we are to confine ourselves exclusively to Liturgical Forms. 
Freedom must be given up ; not the lawless license to do as one 
pleases, but the scope for those new creations of life that a Church 
if really living will put forth in the impulse of the worshiping 
hour. There grows a rigidity at last out of the exclusive use of 
these old established forms. Against this, human nature, when 
thoroughly alive, will revolt. It has revolted, and when it does 



DR. STORK'S ESSAY. 267 

not revolt, as, it may be urged, it did not for many ages in the 
Mediaeval Church, it is because it falls exhausted, because it loses 
that peculiar mark of the Christian life, its elasticity, its spring, 
its unexpected putting forth of new shoots in directions never 
before dreamed of. This lack of vitality was the mark of the 
Church in the Middle Ages. It was not dead, as some Protest- 
ants delight to aver ; but it certainly was oppressed with a fear- 
ful lassitude. It lived, but under oppression, without any power 
of initiation. It could only live; it could not originate any new 
life. But when the revival of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
turies came, then the yoke that the Mediaeval Church was too lan- 
guid to feel oppressive, became intolerable. The young life beat 
itself against the bars of chant and confession and collect ; it 
broke through. I do not blame it. It was inevitable. And it 
always will be inevitable. Life that has no scope for new expres- 
sion, must struggle with a sense of imprisonment. And where 
there is life there will be new expression of it : the substance of 
the Christian life is, indeed, the same in all ages and in all men ; 
yet in every soul, in every congregation, on almost every occasion, 
it will flame out in some special form. And if there is nothing but 
the iron uniformity of the established form, the soul will at last 
mutiny, and demand one utterance that shall be all its own. Give 
it vent ; let the mood of sorrow, of hope, of special thanksgiving 
or supplication, go up to God in a fresh cry like no other cry before, 
and for the main of public worship the sense of the congregation 
will readily fall back on the fixed form. But shut it in, say — speak 
through these provided channels, or not at all — and there will be 
insurrection ; you will have Puritanism with its stern hatred, its 
blind, bitter detestation, its total destruction of Liturgical Forms. 

It has always seemed to me a mistake that the English Church 
gave no place for the spontaneous feeling of the hour, and men 
assembled for worship. To say that men do not need new forms of 
expression ; that the old is better ; that what was good enough for 
the fathers is good enough for us, is to say that the Unity of the 
Church in all ages is not a Unity, but a Uniformity. "We are 
members one of another y" but the very Unity which is constituted 
by the united members, requires that each member should have its 
own special life and function, unlike all others. 

But, of course, no partisan of Liturgical Forms — no worshiper of 



268 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

the past, simply because it is the past— will see this, any more than 
the enemy of Liturgies can feel the need of fellowship with any age 
but his own. Some theologians seem to think that Church History 
stopped a couple of centuries ago, and that all we can do now is 
to reproduce the past in our churches, as we reproduce English 
history in our plays on the stage. The whole impulse of the exclu- 
sively liturgical body is to make the Christian life of to-day but a 
pale image of life centuries ago. This is to destroy, by our insistence 
on Liturgical Forms, the very basis on which alone they can 
reasonably be urged. If the life of the Church to-day is no real, 
original, creative power, but only a playing over on the barrel 
organ of archaeology the tunes of the past, then there can be no 
fellowship with the past at all. Fellowship is possible only between 
living beings; and to say that the Church cannot strike out any- 
thing new — to brand all that is fresh and individual with the mark 
" Nova, pitlchr a, falsa" — is to say it has no life, only a galvanized 
simulacrum of life borrowed from what once lived. Do we not 
see that this is to cut up the fellowship of the saints from the roots ? 
The Puritans of the sixteenth century and the Puritans of the nine- 
teenth century would cut it up by breaking with the past; the exclu- 
sive Liturgical bodies would cut it up by breaking on the wheel the 
living, creative Church of to-day. But what profits it to discuss 
whether we shall hold by the communion of the past or that of the 
present? It is like asking, Shall we give up the head or the heart. 
It is only a question of what death we shall die. 

We must remember then the two forces in the religious nature ; 
that by which it holds by the past, and that by which it projects 
itself into the future. It is the problem of our age to reconcile the 
two. He who says — Give us the old Liturgical Forms and nothing 
else; the Church found them enough for ages, and so may we — he, 
I say, is blind and knows not whereof he affirms. He has one-half 
the problem : but that which solves only half a problem is no solu- 
tion at all. And he who says, Away with forms ; give us the free 
order ; let us speak only as the spirit moves — he has the other half; 
and that, too, is no solution. Until we can make man in his relig- 
ious nature to look only before him into the future, we cannot let 
go our Liturgical Forms ; and until we have made him to look only 
after, backward to the past, we cannot give up free prayer. 

Of course it is possible to deny this. Not only so, but what is 



DR. STORK S ESSAY. 209 

worse, it is possible honestly not to see it. Do you say that the 
shouting Methodist, with his outspoken detestation of collects and 
confessions, is only a canting hypocrite ? Or, on the other hand, 
that the churchly dignitary, who shudders at an extemporaneous 
prayer, is a pompous Pharisee who has the form of godliness without 
the power ? Dismiss such easy solutions of the difficulty as these. 
If only it were so, that all the opposers of Liturgies were hypocrites, 
and all the defenders of them Pharisees, it would be easier to deal 
with this question. But they are only too honest. They speak just 
what they feel. You may persuade one who can but will not see, 
at last to see. But who will give sight to the blind ? It is terribly 
possible to cultivate religious blindness. We may steadily cultivate 
one side of our religious nature till other parts shrivel and lose their 
sensibility ; and then it will seem as if everything that appeals to 
other sensibilities than those left to us, were fantastic, unreal, a mere 
outburst of fanaticism or folly. One may so steadily look at the 
past that after awhile he has no eye for anything not cast in 
the old moulds; he has no life in himself that seeks new channels ; 
he becomes like the artist who copies the old master so long that at 
last his pencil refuses to draw any outline but Raphael's, to compose 
any subject but in the manner of Leonardo. Or we may insist so 
strenuously on our individual freedom, that at last the nerve of con- 
nection with the Church Universal is paralyzed, and we have no 
feeling for what is saintly or heroic in the old forms ; the Church 
begins with us, extends as far as our circle of companions, and so 
ends. And so men can after awhile honestly wonder what any one 
can find in a Liturgy to satisfy his devotional longings ; "It is so 
cold, so dead, so formal ;" and to him it is : it has no life from the 
past in it for him, for to the past he is deaf, blind. But that is his 
loss; not the measure of what the Church needs, or what other men 
in a healthier state crave. And so another shudders at a free prayer ; 
"What is the use of it? it is so new, so strange." Yes, it is strange, 
for his life is all in the past ; he thinks and feels in the grooves of 
other men's spiritual movements ; he has quelled all individual life 
of his own, until anything unwonted in worship seems a solecism, 
a piece of irreligion, a profanity. We do with ourselves in one 
direction of our spiritual life, just what we see very clearly the 
scientific investigator is apt to do with his whole spiritual being. 
We neglect it till it is shriveled and numb, and then, like the scien- 



270 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

tific skeptic, because our paralyzed sensibility in a certain direc- 
tion reports nothing, nothing, we declare, is there. The skeptic 
loses the use of his spiritual nature, and then declares there is 
nothing spiritual. The modern religionist cuts himself loose from 
the Church Catholic, and then, grown insensible to any need of the 
Communion of Saints, asserts there is no such communion outside 
his little circle ; and the Liturgical partisan, binding all his religious 
nature down to the Procrustean bed of an exclusive form, and in 
time fitted to that, is amazed that it should be possible for men to 
feel any devotional need not provided for in the collects or confes- 
sions. 

But every man who knows something of the cunning tricks 
human nature plays, will be careful how he measures the Universe 
by the ten-inch rule of his own tastes and feelings. He will not in- 
sist that there is nothing in what a great part of the Christian body 
prizes and draws nutriment from, because it does not hit his fancy. 
If, when he looks steadily in the direction in which great bodies of 
other Christians are seeing visions, he discerns nothing, he will 
not at once cry out, "Stuff and nonsense; there is nothing there !" 
but ask whether possibly he may not be dull of vision. 

I submit that the Liturgist is not all right, and the defender of a 
free order all wrong. Neither is the reverse the truth. They are 
both right positively ; and both wrong negatively. The Liturgist is 
right in approving the power and fitness of the established and 
ancient order; and the defender of free prayer is right in his advo- 
cacy of spontaneous utterance in worship. The Liturgist is wrong 
when he says, "No free prayer;" and the opposer of Liturgies is 
wrong when he says, "No liturgical Forms." They are the two 
halves of a divided sphere : each half by itself is false ; join it to 
the other, and you have the round, completed truth. 

I return to the words with which this paper begins: "The 
question of Liturgies is not a great question in Christianity, but 
it it one that can be solved only by appeal to great Christian prin- 
ciples." These principles are the freedom of the individual mem- 
ber, and the unity of the Christian body. They are the two great 
structural, or if we may speak Platonically, architectonic facts of 
the Christian life. Between them the Church for eighteen centuries 
has been oscillating, grasping now the one, and then the other, 
but never holding the two in completeness at once. Hold exclu- 



DR. STORK S ESSAY. 2J I 

sively the one, the freedom of the individual, and you will have 
a free and shifting order; hold only the other, the unity of the 
body, and you will have a prescribed, unbroken Liturgical order. 
It is to be hoped the age will come when the Church will be 
strong enough and liberal enough to hold both at once ; and then 
the Liturgical question will be settled forever. 

From what has been said it will be seen at once that the perfect 
Liturgical Form is a growth : it cannot be made. We may con- 
struct an elaborate order ; we may make it as august and stately as 
we will ; but we cannot breathe into it the full vital sense, the glow, 
the flush, the vibrating harmony of the fellowship of the saints. 
Only the use of generations of worshiping men and women can do 
that. 

The best approach to this ideal is to select only the old ; not to 
attempt to make our Liturgical Forms de novo. It is the misfortune 
of the Lutheran Church that she has had so many Liturgies. She 
has changed them so often that no one order is venerable. The 
chord is always broken. But this we can do : We can compose an 
order to-day from material long used and resonant with the relig- 
ious fervors, the penitence and aspiration of former ages. We have 
not the perfect instrument, but we can make an instrument from 
the mellow fragments of antiquity that lie all around, and the tones 
of the Past will reverberate through it. 

And we can leave room for the spontaneous utterance of the 
Present. Some maintain that the day when a great Liturgical 
prayer, or chant, or confession, could be written, has passed away ; 
that every age has its own peculiar gift, and that in former genera- 
tions the Liturgical gift was rich and varied ; that we have the gift 
of activity, not of lofty devotional utterance. It may be so. I 
think it more than probable. But be that as it may, the Church of 
to-day has its own peculiar life, solitary, the offspring of the hour. 
For this it finds no adequate utterance in the old forms : it craves 
a new voice. Let it have it. 

As the result of the thoughts considered in this paper, I submit 
the following propositions : 

i. That the Church for its public worship needs Liturgical 
Forms as an adequate expression of the solemnity of its united ap- 
proach to the Creator. 

2. That an established and venerable order most fully realizes the 
Communion of Saints. 



272 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

3. That no order of public service can be considered complete 
which does not by some free prayer provide for the expression of 
the feeling peculiar to the time and circumstances. 

4. That the ideal order cannot be made, but must grow by the 
use of generations of worshipers. 

5. That any change of Liturgical Forms from the long-estab- 
lished order, except for doctrinal reasons, is to be deprecated as 
breaking the continuity of the fellowship of the Church in wor- 
ship. 

6. That in framing a Liturgy, if a Church is so unfortunate as 
not to have an established order, the various parts are to be 
chosen from Liturgies already consecrated by long use ; and that 
collects, anthems, confessions, responsive orders, are not to be made 
de novo. 

REMARKS OF REV. L. E. ALBERT, D. D. ( General Synod.) 
Dr. L. E. Albert said that he was glad to-day of his connection 
with the General Synod, because the principles of worship so ably 
and beautifully set forth in the paper of Dr. Stork, were the prin- 
ciples recognized in that body. Its order of service happily pre- 
served the continuity of the past life of the Church with the pres- 
ent, in the adoption of forms sacred through long association, and 
in making provision at the same time for peculiar needs of the hour 
in unwritten prayers. The Liturgy which the Liturgical Commit- 
tee, of which he was a member, were under orders to publish in its 
provisional form, fully embodied these principles and was adapted 
to give them effect. 

REMARKS OF REV. F. W. CONRAD, D. D. {General Synod.) 

I have listened with no ordinary interest to the paper just read. 
It treats of the subject of worship and discusses the best manner of 
performing it. Two modes of worship have prevailed in the 
Church — the liturgical and the spontaneous and free. God is Him- 
self the author of liturgical forms of prayer and prescribed an order 
of service for the Jewish Church. But notwithstanding this, the 



DISCUSSION. 273 

spontaneous utterances of free prayer in secret, in social meetings, 
and on extraordinary occasions, were also called forth under the 
promptings of the Holy Spirit. Nor was it otherwise in the primi- 
tive Church. Christ furnished His disciples with a form of prayer 
and thus introduced the liturgical principle of worship into the 
Christian Church. The Apostles offered spontaneous supplications 
to God, and thus inaugurated free prayer as a component part of 
public worship. Both methods of worship have thus received 
the divine sanction, and both have been exemplified in the Mosaic 
and Christian dispensations. 

The history of public worship proves that there is a felt want 
among Christians, both for the use of forms and for the utterance of 
spontaneous prayers. To supply these wants is the design of litur- 
gical services and of free prayer. In the Jewish Church the 
liturgical method predominated ; in the Primitive Church the use of 
free prayer predominated. The Romish Church gradually sup- 
pressed free prayer, and followed a long prescribed form of worship 
in an unknown tongue. The Protestant Church revived free prayer, 
and while it retained the most devotional forms of worship, short- 
ened and purified the Church service. 

Luther accepted the liturgical principle in worship as scriptural, 
and prepared several liturgies. The service of his last liturgy was 
shorter than that of the first. He had also prepared the outlines 
of a still more simple form of service before his death. Zwingli 
and Calvin also approved the use of liturgical forms in public 
worship. Hence, all the Churches of the Reformation — Luther- 
an, Zwinglian and Calvinistic — recognized the liturgical princi- 
ple, not to the exclusion of, but as co-ordinate with, the use of free 
prayer. 

Muhlenberg retained the principal parts of the simpler liturgical 
service prepared by Luther, and the first Lutheran churches in this 
country used liturgical services. But under the predominating in- 
fluence of Puritanic opposition to all forms of prayer and liturgical 



274 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

services in public worship, the Puritanic method of worship by 
free prayer alone, was introduced into nearly all the Lutheran 
Churches of this country. A general reaction, however, against 
this Puritanic extreme has taken place during the last twenty years. 
Congregationalists themselves now confess that their fathers went 
too far in their exclusion of all liturgical forms, and now not a few 
of them use responsive readings of Scripture, the Creed and the 
Lord's Prayer in public worship. Similar sentiments are uttered 
and liturgical forms used among Presbyterians, Methodists and 
some other denominations in this country. Under the influence of 
this reaction, the Lutheran Church has gone back to her first 
principles, and furnished her churches with liturgical services, con- 
taining the purest and most devotional parts of worship, developed 
under religious experience, and the indicting influence of the Holy 
Spirit. Some of the Churches have adopted these liturgical forms 
exclusively, others continue to conduct public worship by free 
prayer alone, while others still combine both methods, using litur- 
gical forms and spontaneous, free prayer in the religious services of 
the sanctuary. Not the body alone, to the exclusion of the soul — 
not the soul alone, to the exclusion of the body —but body and 
soul in organic unity, constitute the true type of humanity. In 
like manner, not liturgical forms alone to the exclusion of free 
prayer — nor free prayer alone to the exclusion of liturgical forms — 
but liturgical forms in connection with free prayer, constitute the 
true scriptural ideal of a devotional service for the worship of God 
in His sanctuary. The liturgical form supplies the general wants 
of the worshiper in his approach to God ; free prayer supplies his 
peculiar wants, as they arise from time to time under the changing 
circumstances of life. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. A. BROWN, D. D. {General Synod.) 

There can be but one judgment in regard to the paper just read. 
It was marked by a sobriety of judgment, a clearness of discrimina- 



DISCUSSION. 275 

tion, a hearty appreciation both of the importance and difficulty of 
the subject, and handled with a freshness and vigor, that must com- 
mend it to all sober and reflecting minds. It furnishes food for 
serious meditation in regard to our worship. This is no time or 
place to venture on an extemporaneous criticism of its literary char- 
acter, but I think all were delighted with the style of it, and would 
agree that simply as an essay it possessed literary merits of a high 
order. I can only say that I was delighted, and, I believe, edified 
by the discussion. 

Rev. G. F. Krotel, D. D., of New York, appointed to read the 
next paper, was prevented by indisposition both from preparing an 
essay, and from being present. 

It was resolved that Rev. Dr. Mann occupy the vacant place. 

The eleventh paper was then read, 



THESES ON THE LUTHERANISM OF THE FATHERS 
OF THE CHURCH IN THIS COUNTRY. 

BY REV. W. J. MANN, D. D. 

Professor in the Evangelical Ltttheran Theological Seminary, Philadelphia. 

I. THE SUBJECT. 

WE find, that in the presentation of the subject the expression, 
"Fathers of the Church," is used. We understand thereby, 
those men and their co-laborers, who were the founders of the 
Mother-Synod, and, consequently, the organizers of an indepen- 
dent, self-governing, Lutheran Church-body on this continent. 

2 . We have here before our mind, especially, the Rev. Dr. H. M. 
Muhlenberg and his associates, the Rev. Messrs. Brunnholz, Hein- 
zelmann, Hands chuh, Knrz, Schulze and others. We take the 
Rev. Dr. H. M. Muhlenberg as the most eminent type of their doc- 
trinal position and practical principles. 

3. There were Lutheran congregations established, and Lutheran 
pastors, of Dutch, Swedish and German origin, active in this 
country before the time of Muhlenberg. About their doctrinal 
views we can hardly entertain any doubt. We know that, on account 
of their Lutheran convictions, some of them had suffered persecu- 
tion, and that one of them, the Rev. Justus Falkner, born in Zwic- 
kau, Saxony, who preached first in Montgomery county, Pa., and at 
a later period to Lutheran congregations at New York and Albany, 
published, A. D. 1708, a book which was undoubtedly called forth 
by his discussions with Calvinists, and which that last and venerable 
champion of the Lutheran Orthodoxy of the seventeenth century, 
E. Valentine Loescher, honors with the title of a " Co?npendium 
Doctrince Anti-Calvinianum." The efforts of those congregations 
and of those men left, however, no distinguishable trace in the 
evolution and organization of the Lutheran Church in this country. 

4. The history, not of the Lutherans, but of the organization of 
the Lutheran Church in this country, dates from the fifth decade of 
the last century, from the time of the arrival of H. M. Muhlenberg 

(276) 






DR. MANN S ESSAY. 277 

on the western shore of the Atlantic, 1742, and from the formation 
of the first Synod, 1748. The inner history of the Church wit- 
nesses to a considerable deviation from the principles and the spirit 
of the Fathers, since the first decades of the present century. 
With the generation of the "Epigonoi," we have, however, nothing 
to do here. 

5. The term Lutheranism, as used in connection with the subject- 
matter before us, refers not only to the doctrinal position, but also 
to its practical application, and, especially, to the principles and 
ways of pastoral life. 

II. THE HISTORICAL CONNECTION. 

i. When H. M. Muhlenberg was preparing himself for the min- 
istry at Goettingen and Halle, the great crisis, through which ortho- 
dox Dogmatism in Germany was displaced by Pietism, on the one 
hand, and Rationalism on the other, was almost passed, but had 
produced its impression upon the religious mind of the age. 

2. As there were "Pietists" even before Spener, though that 
appellation was then not used, so there were orthodox men among 
the Pietists, who had no sympathy with Rationalism, Unionism, 
Indifferentism. Whilst they opposed error, they were convinced 
that Lutheran Theology had something better to live on than bitter 
polemics against Christians of a different name, and had to show 
its strength also in other directions. 

3. Spener's Pietism was not heterodox. Neither was it separatis- 
ts. It was not a revolution against the doctrinal basis of the Lu- 
theran Church. Neither was it the establishment of a sect. But it 
was a reaction against that tendency, which often considered or- 
thodoxy as the great end of Christianity, and forgot that it was the 
means to produce sound Christian faith and life. 

4. Spener's Lutheranism was of a practical character. As such, 
it was true Christianity. Spener strove to excite the individuals to 
personal piety, and the Church to measures to promote that end. 
But he was very far from undervaluing the Means of Grace, or from 
thinking of them in an un-Lutheran way. The practical character 
combined with doctrinal decision and precision, which we see in 
the so-called Old-Lutherans, Missourians, Iowa-men, and others of 
our days, was the very Lutheranism of Spener's "Pia Desideria," 
save the acrimony and littleness often exhibited now. 



278 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

5. The Lutheranism and Pietism of H. M. Muhlenberg, and of 
the other Fathers, was after the type of Spener. It was free from 
that indifference toward doctrinal landmarks and toward general 
literary and philosophical culture, which was observable in many 
Pietists; it was free from sickly sentimentalism and from hypo- 
critical cant, both of which often serve as a substitute for religious 
fervor and moral energy. 

6. Of other extravagancies also, which were peculiar to the 
Pietism, that, especially in the times of A .H. Francke, maintained 
at Halle and gave odium to a good cause, anxiety to the mind of 
Spener, and occasion for justifiable attacks on the part of E. Val. 
Loescher and others, we find no traces in the character of H. M. 
Muhlenberg, who, even as a student at Goettingenand Halle, proved 
himself a man of the right Christian practical character, by taking 
an active interest in the religious education and other necessities of 
neglected and needy children, and afterwards by accepting the call 
to labor among Lutherans in the far-off regions of the New World. 
His associates in the great work were men of similar character. 

III. THE FIELD AND THE LABOR. 

i. The social conditions which the Fathers found in this new 
field of the Church, were much at variance with those which they 
had left in Germany, a fact which well deserves to be noticed. 

(a) In Germany, the people were living in congregations, which 
as such were identical with the local civil communalities. In this 
country, the people were dispersed over large territories and, even 
in larger towns, the organization of Lutheran congregations had 
hardly begun. 

(&) In Germany, the people were in their respective localities a 
homogeneous mass as to ethnology, politics, language, habits, relig- 
ious confession and forms of worship. In this country, the different 
elements from various parts of Europe, and also from various pro- 
vinces of Germany, were promiscuously inter-located. 

(V) In Germany, in the various localities, a system of religious 
instruction and a certain Church tradition had been established. 
Things were generally in a settled condition. In this country, the 
reverse of all this was prevalent, and out of the chaos the churchly 
cosmos had to be formed. 

(a) In Germany, the lines separating the various denominations 



DR. MANN S ESSAY. 279 

were well defined, and, in social life, well preserved. In this 
country, the various Christian parties were greatly intermixed with 
one another in all places ; intermarriages between the adherents of 
the various confessions were the order of the day. 

2. To the practical mind of the fathers, it appeared self-evident 
that these peculiar social conditions could not be changed ; that to 
gather the Lutherans in separate localities, and there to organize 
them in congregations after the manner of Zinzendorf s Moravian 
Missions, was out of the question, and that any effort made in this 
direction, would, in the end, prove abortive. 

3. There can be no doubt that Pietism — which was not under all 
circumstances a distortion of Christianity or of Lutheranism, but 
had in its best form been a healthful reaction of practical Chris- 
tianity against ultra-theoretical, dogmatical orthodoxism, and an in- 
dispensable element in the progress ' of religious life in Germany — 
had done its share in preparing the Fathers for the work in store 
for them in the New World. Probably without Pietism they might 
never have crossed the ocean. 

4. Under those peculiar circumstances, wherein they were placed 
and had to do the work of the Master, a sense of wisdom and duty 
directed them, in their pastoral activity and in preaching, to avoid 
offensive polemics, which would have produced strife in families 
and hatred among neighbors, without being convincing or conduc- 
ive to practical piety. 

5. Whilst the interests of the Lutheran Church and her peculiar 
features in doctrines and in forms of worship lay near to their heart, 
they acknowledged no barrier in the shape of language, nationality, 
color or social position. 

6. They found it necessary for the promotion of the Church and 
her work, for the maintenance and well-being of her congregations 
and of her people, to bring about an organization of the Church 
on this new territory. To this organization they gave not the 
polity of the Presbyterian Church, but the essential features of a 
Presbyterian form of government, being convinced that under the 
circumstances with which they had to deal, such a form of govern- 
ment might be best calculated to promote the interests of the 
Church and to produce a desirable, active sympathy, between the 
pastors and the people. In this they made use of those liberal 
principles, peculiar to the Lutheran Church. And in this measure, 



280 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

to bring the laity into active co-operation with the clergy in the 
government of Church and congregation, they carried out one of 
the "Pia Desideria" of Spener, one of the principles whereby the 
Evangelical Church opposes Romanism, and one of the features of 
Christianity as such. 

7. That our Fathers' were far from radical ideas in the adminis- 
tration of Church -affairs, maybe gathered also from this — that they 
carefully guarded against any obliteration of the distinction between 
the " ordo Clericus" and "ordoLaicus" and practically acknowl- 
edged, that the theologians and pastors of the Church had a sphere 
of duty peculiar to them, and that their special interests and 
rights should be properly taken care of. Therefore, also, special 
"Ministerial sessions" at the meetings of Synod. 

8. The principle, that the Church has to exercise discipline 
toward her members, was not only theoretically acknowledged, but 
it was practically executed, a fact for which we could gather many 
striking proofs from the records of those times. The question of 
the incompatibility of Lutheran Church-membership with the mem- 
bership of so-called secret societies, which now deservedly claims 
attention, was at that time not agitated, such societies then not 
prevailing as they now do. 

9. The education of the children of the Church, and especially 
their proper religious instruction, was one of the great cares of 
those Fathers. They not only considered regular catechisation of 
the young as one of the most essential parts of pastoral activity, 
but they also endeavored to establish, wherever possible, parochial 
schools, and made the education of teachers one of their special 
cares. Schools from which religious instruction should be ex- 
cluded, belonged to the things of which those godly men had no 
conception. The Sunday-schools of our times were not known then. 

10. They considered it as essentially belonging to the pastoral 
office, to take a lively interest in the spiritual welfare of the indi- 
viduals entrusted to their care. We see them not only in an 
edifying intercourse with the families and visiting the sick and the 
dying, but we also observe, that they endeavor to make themselves 
sure of the spiritual condition of every individual, especially before 
admission to the Lord's Supper. They deeply felt the responsibility 
of him who admits and of those who are admitted. 

1 1. Of the character of the sermons of the Fathers the " Hallische 



DR. MANN'S ESSAY. 28 1 

Nachrichten" give us sufficient information. There we find here 
and there introduced the leading thoughts, often the skeletons of 
sermons, preached at various occasions. We receive the impression 
that the preaching of those men was less doctrinal than practical ; 
thoroughly biblical and calculated to edify the faithful and to lead 
sinners to repentance and to faith in Christ, whilst it was in strict 
harmony with the confessional character of our Church. 

12. Much stress did the Fathers lay upon Pastoral Conferences, 
where they discussed biblical, doctrinal and practical questions, took 
counsel on difficult cases, appertaining to the pastoral office and 
experience, encouraged one another to faithfulness in the service, 
entrusted to them, and comforted one another under the heavy 
trials of their pastoral life. Those conferences they found excellent 
means to improve their own usefulness in the service of the Lord. 

13. Taken all in all, those Fathers were very far from giving the 
Lutheran Church, as they organized it on this new field of labor, a 
form and character in any essential point different from what the 
Lutheran Church was in the Old World, and especially in Germany. 
They retained not only the old doctrinal standards, but also the old 
traditional elements and forms of worship ; the Church-year with its 
great festivals, its Gospel and Epistle lessons, the Liturgy, the rite 
of Confirmation, preparatory service for the Lord's Supper, con- 
nected with the Confession of sins and with the Absolution. 

14. It would be unjust, and would leave this short delineation of 
the Lutheranism of those founders of the Lutheran Church-organi- 
zation in this country quite incomplete, if we would not refer to the 
manifestation of divine grace in their missionary spirit, personal de- 
votion, energetic conscientiousness, self-sacrificing zeal and power 
of endurance, wherewith they gave themselves to the work to which 
Providence had called them. Of this their spiritual endowment 
the reports testify, which are embodied in the " Hallische Nach- 
richten," those invaluable annals of that great foundation period of 
the Lutheran Church of this country. And to this, the Church it- 
self, as they left it, when Christ called them to their eternal reward, 
stood as a lasting monument. 

15. The founding and raising of our Church in this country was 
during the last century evidently a missionary work. Those Fathers 
were indeed Missionaries in the literal sense of the term. As such, 
they came from a far-off land and had to carry on their labors in 

19 



282 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

this new and extensive field, under very peculiar and trying circum- 
stances. That this extraordinary state of things should have exer- 
cised no influence at all upon them, would seem very unnatural. 
They had to miss much which in their native country gave charms 
and strength to pastoral life. They felt the need of the sympathy of 
those also, who, though of another flock, served the same Master; 
and whilst never forgetting the distinctive character of Lutheranism, 
they cherished pleasant relations and intercourse here and there 
with pastors and laymen of other denominations, and at various 
and solemn occasions gave and received signs of mutual confidence 
and esteem. But they decisively and wisely resisted every undue 
influence from outside, by which Lutheranism might have, been 
placed in jeopardy. 

IV. CONCLUSION. 

i. The doctrinal position of those Fathers was unmistakably 
Lutheran, in the sense in which Lutheranism is historically known, 
and is something individual and distinct, and as such stands in oppo- 
sition to Romanism on the one hand, and to Zwingli, Calvin and all 
other so-called Protestant parties on the other. 

2. To this testify among other things the following facts : 

(a) Those Fathers were admitted to the ministry on condition 
of their own declaration that they were in harmony with the Con- 
fessio Augustana Invariata, and with all the other Symbolical Books 
of the Lutheran Church. 

(J?) They demanded of those whom they admitted to the 
sacred office, the same condition. The declaration had to be given 
in writing. 

(/) They strenuously opposed any one who did not prove faith- 
ful to his given declaration, whilst being in the ministry. 

(d) They allowed no organization or constitutions of congre- 
gations, without demanding the acknowledgment of all the Symbol- 
ical Books of the Lutheran Church as the doctrinal basis. 

(J) They preached and prayed in harmony with the Standards of 
the Church, and based the religious instruction of the young upon 
them, and especially upon Luther's Smaller Catechism. 

(/) They understood and interpreted these Standards in the 
sense in which the founders of the Lutheran Church in the Six- 
teenth Century understood them. 



DISCUSSION. 283 

3. Their Lutheranism did not differ from the Lutheran Orthodoxy 
of the preceding period, in the matter of doctrine, but to an extent in 
the manner of applying it. It was orthodoxy practically vitalized. 
They were less theoretical and polemical, than preceding genera- 
tions. Whilst tolerant toward those of other convictions, they 
were, however, neither indifferent nor unionistically inclined, and 
never conformed Lutheranism to any other form of Christianity, 
though in their days the pressure in this direction was heavy. They 
actualized their own Lutheran convictions through a noble, exem- 
plary life and service. Their Pietism was truly Lutheran piety, a 
warm-hearted, devout, active, practical Lutheranism. 

4. Keeping in view the circumstances under which they had to 
labor, we are persuaded that just such men, such Lutherans, such 
pastors, were the proper men for the work, to which in those times a 
wise Providence had called them, and that men of another type 
would never have accomplished what they accomplished. It is 
worth while to consider, whether any other manner of Lutheranism 
will ever perform greater things, and establish the Church on a more 
lasting basis in this country, and better serve the cause of Christ. 
Knowing that as men they could err and did err, we praise God 
that through His grace He kept them in the true faith, and made 
them instruments to do much good, and to lay the proper founda- 
tion for the Lutheran Church in this Western hemisphere. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. G. MORRIS, D. D., LL.D. {General Synod.) 
Dr. Morris expressed his gratification with the valuable paper of 
Dr. Mann ; but remarked, that of necessity some points of interest 
connected with the Lutheranism of the Fathers of our Church in 
this country, were omitted. Dr. Mann could not have condensed 
more facts into the time which he occupied. There was one matter, 
however, concerning which he desired to make inquiry. Many 
years ago he had accompanied a venerable clergyman, of the Minis- 
terium of Pennsylvania, to a preparatory service before communion, 
held in what was -then one of the most secluded parts of the territory 
of that Synod, and in one of its oldest congregations. When the 
time came for the confessional prayer, the pastor called upon an old 
lady, who, in a peculiarly shrill and piping tone, said the prescribed 



284 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

form. He desired to know whether this was a usual practice among 
the Fathers of our Church, or one which was simply occasional, 
and confined to certain localities. 

REMARKS BY REV. W. J. MANN. ( General Council.) 
Dr. Mann replied that he was under the impression that it was 
frequently employed. A former sexton of his church had often 
spoken of it, and told him that for many years he had been assigned 
this part. The design of the custom was to avoid the awkwardness 
attending the two-fold position which the minister has otherwise to 
assume, first as the representative of the congregation of sinners, 
and then immediately afterward as the representative of God, 
granting and announcing forgiveness. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. A. BROWN, D. D. {General Synod.) 
Dr. Brown asked whether it was in accordance with sound Luther- 
anism for a woman to thus lead a congregation in prayer, in the 
presence of the pastor, and if so, what warrant could be had for 
forbidding women to teach in the Church. 

REMARKS OF REV. W. J. MANN, D. D. {General Council.) 
Dr. Mann replied that it would be perfectly proper for a woman 
to lead in such a prayer, in case there were no man present willing 
to do so. The case of teaching was not parallel. In the one case, 
the woman would stand in the place of the sinner, and as the repre- 
sentative of sinners, begging God for forgiveness ; in the other, she 
would act as the mouth-piece of God. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. G. MORRIS, D. D., LL.D. {General Synod.) 
Dr. Morris said that there was another point to which he desired 
to refer. He would have been pleased to have heard something in 
Dr. Mann's paper, concerning the exchange of pulpits practiced by 
Muhlenberg, and some of the other Fathers, with ministers of the 
various English denominations. 

The discussion that followed was almost conversational in form, 



DISCUSSION. 285 

and was participated in by Drs. Mann, Spaeth, Krauth, Brown, 
Seiss and Rev. Welden. It was argued, on the one side, that the 
preaching of Whitefield, and Rev. Peters of the Church of England, 
in Zion's Church, Philadelphia, was not to be understood as pulpit 
fellowship; that they did not preach by invitation of Lutheran 
ministers to Lutheran congregations, but that the church-edifice 
was simply granted them to conduct in it their own services for 
their own people. On the other side, it was urged that this expla- 
nation was not sufficient. 

The remarks handed in by the speakers are as follows : 

REMARKS OF REV. PROF. C. P. KRAUTH, D. D., LL.D. 

[General Council.) 

Dr. Krauth said that Dr. Mann had very properly said nothing of 
the "exchange of pulpits" the reciprocal giving and taking on the 
part of our Lutheran Fathers, as nothing equivalent to what now 
passes under that title was practiced by them. The Agenda shows 
beyond dispute that the Rule was that Lutheran altars were open to 
Lutheran communicants only. And the history of the time shows 
that the Rule, both theoretical and practical, was that Lutheran 
pulpits are for Lutheran ministers only. The exceptions were rare, 
were confined to extraordinary cases, and were believed to be in 
harmony with the Rule, as consistent, or, if you please, rigid 
Lutherans define it. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. A. BROWN, D. D. {General Synod.) 
The facts as they exist, and have in part been stated by Dr. 
Mann and the speakers who have followed him, leave no room to 
question that the early founders of Lutheranism in this country did 
cherish a liberal spirit and cultivate friendly relations with other 
evangelical denominations. There was an interchange of pulpits, 
and of other ministerial and ecclesiastical courtesies, which show 
that they recognized each other as belonging to the one "Holy 
Catholic Church." It is unnecessary to cite facts or to multiply 



286 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

proofs of this general statement. Take the case just mentioned of 
Rev. Peters of the Episcopal Church, officiating regularly on the 
day of the dedication of Zion Church, in that church ; or of Rev. 
Whitefield, by invitation of the Ministerium, addressing the children 
in the Lutheran Church. It is simply ridiculous to say that the 
Church was given as a matter of courtesy for them to hold a service 
for themselves, but that it was no recognition or endorsement of 
their ministry. Would the advocates of exclusivism do the same 
thing to-day ? or, if the friends of a more liberal and catholic policy 
were to repeat such acts of Muhlenberg and the Ministerium of 
Pennsylvania a century and a third ago, would they not be 
branded as unionistic, or wanting in loyalty to genuine Lutheran- 
ism ? Were not complaints presented at the last meeting of the 
General Council for substantially the same conduct ? Is it not well 
known that there is a sentiment prevailing in some quarters utterly 
adverse to any such recognition by the Lutheran Church of other 
denominations ? There can be no difficulty, we think, in deter- 
mining on which side Muhlenberg and his co-laborers are to be 
reckoned. Right or wrong, they are on the side of the liberal and 
tolerant Lutheranism, and those who seek to claim them as support- 
ers of an exclusive and illiberal sectarianism can do so only by 
ignoring or denying the plainest and best authenticated facts. They 
were sound, conscientious, decided Lutherans — but did not refuse 
to recognize in a practical way others as brethren in the Lord 
and brethren in the ministry. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. A. SEISS, D. D. {General Council.) 
There is no advantage in slurring over facts. There were very 
great favors shown by the Patriarch Muhlenberg and his associates, 
to the celebrated Whitefield while in Philadelphia. He had invited 
that eminent minister to address the children of his congregation, 
which he also did in the presence of Muhlenberg and the Minis- 
terium of Pennsylvania. The statement of the personal friendship 
and mutual regard between Muhlenberg and Rev. Mr. Peters of the 



DISCUSSION. 287 

Episcopal Church, did not give the whole case. It is a matter of 
record that during the solemnities of the consecration of Zion 
Church, in this city, Rev. Peters was invited by the authorities of 
said church to occupy the pulpit, and to preach one of the ser- 
mons. Rev. Peters not only accepted the invitation, but his sermon 
was requested for publication, and officially given to the public in 
printed form by the officers of Zion Church. The speaker had 
himself seen and read a copy of it. If not mistaken in his recol- 
lection, he had recently also read a note of these facts in the "Hal- 
lische Nachrichten. " These were circumstances of some moment, 
and should be distinctly brought out as they were. l 

1 "Hallische Nachrichten," p. 1122 : "Oct. 15th, the clergy and deputies to 
Synod began to assemble. In the afternoon arrangements were made, etc., and 
it was also considered whether we should not invite Mr. Whitefield, and the two 
friendly ministers of the Episcopal Church, to be present on Monday and 
Tuesday, at the examination of the children of the Church. In the evening, 
Dr. Wrangeland I called on Mr. Whitefield and invited him in the name of the 
Ministerium, and also the rector of the High (Episcopal) Church, who was 
present with Mr. Whitefield." 

Idem, p. 1 128 : " Oct. 18th, at 10 o'clock in the morning, we went to the 
church, and took the children with us. By degrees the following named per- 
sons arrived : Duchee and Inglis, of the Episcopal Church, Dr. Finley, Presi- 
dent of the Presbyterian College in Jersey ; the Elder Tennant, a Presbyterian 
minister from Newark; also Mr. Whitefield, and a large number of English 
friends. Mr. Whitefield ascended the pulpit, made a powerful prayer, turned 
to the children, and made a discourse about the pious children in the 
Old and New Testaments, and some later examples in his own experi- 
ence, and then spoke to parents on their duties. The children were then 
examined by Dr. Wrangel and myself, and we closed with a church song. The 
preachers and deputies dined in the school-house, and the elder Mr. Tennant 
presided, and gratified us with edifying discourse. After dinner the Minister- 
ium proceeded with its business." 

Idem, p. 850: " On the 9th and 10th of August, I had a visit in Providence 
from the Rev. Mr. Richard Peters. In the morning he attended our German 
service, and expressed himself much pleased, and in the afternoon he preached 
an English sermon, very sound and edifying, to a large audience." 

Idem, p. 908 : '' Friday, the 21st of May, I set out early on my journey to 
Philadelphia. About noon I reached Mr. R., who joyfully told me, how yes- 
terday, Ascension Day, the Rev. Provost Wrangel, and the new Swedish min- 
ister, Mr. Wicksel, and the Reformed minister, Mr. Slatter, had preached in 
German and English in the new church, to large congregations, excellent and 



288 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

REMARKS OF REV. C. F. WELDEN. {General Council.) 
The invitation to Dr. Peters to preach in Zion's Church, and the 
special recognition of the sermon by the corporation of the Church, 
do not warrant the inference either of indifference to pure and 
wholesome doctrine, as set forth in our confessions, or of a weak 
and subservient policy, on the part of the Fathers of our Church in 
America, to the leading denominations around them. The Dr. 
Peters referred to, and so highly respected by our Fathers, was 
then a rector, not of the modern Protestant Episcopal, but of the 
Anglican Protestant Church, under the colonial government of 
Great Britain. The Anglican Church in Pennsylvania, under the 
supremacy of the Georges of Hanover, assumed and professed that 
there existed no difference between it and the Lutheran Churches 
of Germany, of Denmark, and of Sweden, save the differences of 
nationality and language ; and this profession was believed and ac- 
cepted by our Lutheran Fathers. The Fathers of the Lutheran 
Church in America cannot therefore be chargeable with looseness or 
inconsistency, as regards the standards of truth confessed and 
practiced by the Lutheran Church ; much less can the proceedings 
in Zion's German Evangelical Lutheran Church on the occasion 

edifying sermons. I arrived in Philadelphia in the evening at 6 o'clock, hav- 
ing baptized several children on the way." 

Idem, pp. 1247-48: In the account of the consecration of Zion's Church, 
which occurred on the occasion of the meeting of the Synod, it is recorded, 
that in consideration of favors received from the English Academy, " the 
Church council resolved to invite the Rev. Richard Peters, commissioner of the 
High (Episcopal) Church and president of the Academy, who had always 
proved himself a friend of the Lutheran preachers and congregations, to preach 
an English sermon in Zion's Church on Monday, June 26, at which the Gover- 
nor, the whole of the clergy of the High (Episcopal) Church, with their ves- 
tryman, etc., were present as invited guests. Mr. Duchee opened by reading 
the English prayers, the Pro-rector of the Academy made a suitable prayer for 
the occasion, the commissioner Peters delivered an excellent sermon on the 
Angels' Song, Luke ii. In conclusion Mr. Muhlenberg, in the English lan- 
guage, in the name of the congregation, thanked the honorable assemblage for 
their friend ship and good will, and for doing the newly-erected church the honor 
to conduct a service in it." 



DISCUSSION. 289 

referred to, be construed as favoring the loose and almost indiscrim- 
inate interchange of pulpits with divergent denominations, now 
prevalent in Protestant sects. 

In evidence of this, let it be remembered, that never having had 
a resident bishop in North America, this branch of the Anglican 
Church becoming widowed, and being unable to maintain her or- 
ganization of Episcopal Government without a bishop, in conse- 
quence of the rupture with the mother country, looked wistfully to 
the Lutheran Church in Denmark for the consecration of a bishop 
for the United States. Further, that until a much later period the 
same professions continued to be made on the part of Episcopalians, 
and that under these representations all of the Swedish Lutheran 
Churches of Pennsylvania and Delaware have become absorbed in 
what has now come to be the modern Protestant Episcopal Church 
in the United States. 

DR. KRAUTH'S REMARKS AND NOTE. 

In connection with Dr. Seiss's statement, Dr. Krauth said that 
he was entirely familiar with the general facts of the case, and that 
on that knowledge he based and repeated his assertion that there 
was nothing in the early practice of our fathers in this country fairly 
parallel with or justifying what is now carried on under the name of 
"Exchange of pulpits." 

In explanation of his meaning he would here add 
(*.) That the relations between the Lutheran Church and the 
Church of England were exceptional, and that the idea prevailed 
upon both sides, and was sustained by a great number of acts on the 
part of both, that the two churches were in fundamental accord. 
The conviction was general, and was acted on, that there was no 
difference but that of language. Rev. Peter Muhlenberg was or- 
dained to the Lutheran ministry, by an English Bishop. Many 
things showed— as Prof. Jacobs has demonstrated by his Article 
read before the Diet — that our Church looked to a probable absorp- 
tion into the Episcopal, as it passed out of its German life. 



29O FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

(«.) The official invitations noted in the "Hallische Nachrichten" 
were very few, were confined to clergymen of the Church of Eng- 
land, and were given under very peculiar circumstances. The very 
care and solemnity of the invitations, mark the fact that they were ex- 
ceptional. Whitefield was a clergyman of the Church of England, 
in some respects an evangelist of forgotten or ignored doctrines of 
the gospel, a witness excluded from many pulpits of his own Church 
because of his earnestness in preaching the truth, in some sense a 
martyr. This invested him with interest in the eyes of our Fathers, 
and his love to the Lutheran Church, and his services to it, made 
him very dear. Dr. Peters, a clergyman also of the Church of 
England, had shown great interest in our Church, and had aided 
it with his influence ; the service which he held was the Episco- 
pal service, and the whole occasion one in which the English com- 
munity had an opening for showing its interest in our Church. It 
was no case of "exchange of pulpits," between denominations re- 
garded as antagonistic, but a recognition of special favors granted 
and of special love shown by those who were believed to differ from 
us in little but language. That the sermon was published simply 
strengthens this view of the case. 

(//'/.) The allowing of the use of a building, when Lutherans did 
not use it, at a period especially when both buildings and preach- 
ing were rare, to those who had helped to erect it, or the use at dif- 
ferent hours of the day of the pulpits of Union churches, does not 
involve the principle here in discussion. 

Despair before the English had quite as much to do as obsti- 
nacy about the German, with some of the most fatal experiences 
of our Church in America. The conviction that our Church dif- 
fered in little but language from the Episcopal, that it needed no 
future in English, led, as it became Anglicized, to a large ab- 
sorption of it into the Episcopal Church. Had there been' no 
fresh immigrations, our Church would have been lost in America. 
As it was, the honest fallacy about the two Churches robbed us of 



DISCUSSION. 29I 

vitality and hope, and cost us hundreds of thousands of members. 
It led to a torpor in the matter of language on the English side, 
which, with the persistence in the matter of language on the Ger- 
man side, would, but for God's gracious providence, have left us 
no future in America. It swept away the posterity of our pilgrim 
fathers, whose toils and blood had been designed to open a new 
home for the Church they loved : it took away our churches ; it 
obliterated the traces of one of our noblest nationalities, and 
made over some of our grandest historic treasures, to form part 
of the theatrical properties of the so-called "Swedish (Episcopal) 
Churches." We, who are in what was the future of that past, 
dare not read back into it, what only the future could reveal, 
and make our knowledge a ground for condemning our fathers. 
They acted in the light of their own time, soberly and prayerfully ; 
and it is an insult, without excuse, to their memory, to quote 
them as helping to support that loose, sectarian practice, so pop- 
ular in our land, and in our time, under the name of "exchange 
of pulpits." 
Adjourned. 



SIXTH SESSION. 



December 2 8th, 1877, 7^ p. m. 
After prayer by the Rev. F. C. C. Kaehler, of Phcenixville, Pa., 
at the request of the author, the President of the Diet read the next 
paper. 

THE DIVINE AND HUMAN FACTORS IN THE CALL 

TO THE MINISTERIAL OFFICE, ACCORDING TO 

THE OLDER LUTHERAN AUTHORITIES. 

BY REV. G. DIEHL, D. D., FREDERICK, MD. 

Augsburg Confession, Article V. " For the obtaining of this Faith, the min- 
istry of teaching the Gospel, and the administering of Sacraments, was insti- 
tuted." Augsburg Confession, Article XIV. " Concerning Ecclesiastical 
Orders (Church Government), they teach that no man should publicly in the 
Church, teach, or administer the Sacraments, except he be regularly called 
(without a regular call)." 

THE ministry of the Word and Sacraments is a distinct office 
in the Church, instituted by God Himself; and not a merely 
human regulation. 

As such it is separate from the universal priesthood of believers. 
The opponents of Luther charged him with teaching in his writings, 
on the priesthood of believers, that all Christians had a commission 
publicly to teach the Gospel ; and thus doing away with the minis- 
terial office. In entering on our subject, it may contribute to a 
clearer view of the scriptural doctrine concerning the pastoral office, 
to define the universal priesthood of believers. 

The passages bearing most directly on this point, are, 1 Peter ii. 9, 
"Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a 
peculiar people ; that ye should show forth the praises of Him who 
hath called you out of darkness into His marvellous light," and 
Rev. i. 5, 6, "Unto Him that loved us, and washed us from our 
sins in His own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto 
God and His Father ; to Him be glory and dominion forever and 
ever. Amen." 

( 2 9 2 ) 



DR. DIEHLS ESSAY. 293 

Taking the term priesthood to indicate the teaching of divine 
truth, and the offering of sacrifices — its usual sense— there is no 
difficulty in its application to all believers. Christians are commis- 
sioned and required to impart religious instruction to those around 
them, and to offer spiritual sacrifices to God. Every pious man is 
to teach in his own house the Word of God to his children, accord- 
ing to the divine command, given by Moses (Deut. vi. 7), "Thou 
shalt teach them diligently unto thy children." The apostle says 
(1 Peter ii. 5), "Ye are built up a spiritual house, a holy priest- 
hood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus 
Christ." 

These sacrifices consist in prayer, thanksgiving, beneficence, the 
devotion of the entire person to Christ with the crucifixion of our 
evil nature, and the offering up of life in martyrdom. 

That prayer is, in the scriptural sense, a spiritual sacrifice, is 
evident from such declarations as (Ps. cxli. 2) " Let my prayer be 
set forth before Thee as incense, and the lifting up of my hands as 
the evening sacrifice;" (Rev. v. 8) "Golden vials full of odors, 
which are the prayers of saints ; ' ' (Rev. viii. 4) ' ' And the smoke 
of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended 
up before God out of the angel's hand." 

Thanksgiving is set down among spiritual sacrifices in Heb. xiii. 
15, "By him, therefore, let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God 
continually, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name." Be- 
neficence is so represented in Phil. iv. 18, "I am full, having re- 
ceived the things which were sent by you, an odor of a sweet 
smell, a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God." Again in 
Heb. xiii. 16, "But to do good and to communicate forget not; 
for with such sacrifices God is well pleased." The devotion of 
the energies of the entire person with the crucifixion of the body 
of sin is represented as a spiritual offering by Paul in Rom. xii. 1, 
"Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, 
which is your reasonable service." And the confession of Christ 
in martyrdom is so viewed by the apostle in Phil. ii. 17, "If I be 
offered upon the sacrifice of your faith;" and in 2 Tim. iv. 6, "I 
am now ready to be offered." Thus all true Christians are spirit- 
ual priests, offering the spiritual sacrifices of praise, prayers and 
holy living. 

Augustine in commenting on Psalm xciv., says : "If we are the 



294 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

temple of God, our souls are the altar of God. What is the sac- 
rifice ? We lay the offering on the altar when we praise God." 

In addition to teaching the truths of religion in conversa- 
tions with neighbors, and in family instruction, the offerings of 
prayer, thanksgiving, alms-deeds, the devotion of all talents and 
energies to the divine service, and the confessing of Christ in mar- 
tyrdom, there is on the part of all believers, who through baptism 
have been brought into covenant relations with God and sacramen- 
tally sealed, a capacity, capability, or eligibility (fahigkeit, Luther 
calls it), to the pastoral office. But this eligibility gives no author- 
ity to discharge the functions of the office until one is regularly 
called of God and invested with the ministry by the Church. As 
the eligibility of all native-born male citizens of the United States 
over forty years of age to the office of President guaranteed by 
the constitution, gives no American the right to the honor and 
power of that office, unless elected to the same by the people, so 
the "fahigkeit" of all baptized believers contended for by Luther, 
gives to no one a commission to teach publicly in the assemblies of 
God's people and administer the Sacraments, unless he be also 
called of God and chosen by the Church. 

That the public preaching of the Gospel and the administering 
of the Sacraments is not entrusted to all pious members of the 
Church is manifest from the words of the apostle, "Are all apos- 
tles? Are all prophets ? Are all teachers ?" (i Cor. xii. 29.) 

We must ever distinguish between the ministry of the Word and 
Sacraments, and the universal commission which all the pious re- 
ceive in their admission to the communion of the Church, by which 
it is demanded that they should bring to God the devotion of their 
persons and the offerings of worship ; to take care the Word of God 
dwell richly among them (Col. iii. 16); that they teach and ad- 
monish one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with grace 
in their hearts to the Lord (Eph. v. 19); and that they comfort 
one another with these words (1 Thes. iv. 18). The one is a spe- 
cific office ordained of God. The other is a universal privilege 
and duty. To the one certain persons are regularly called and 
formally invested. The other is the common right and obligation 
of all Christians. 



DR. DIEHL'S ESSAY. 295 

The Divine Factor in Conferring the Office. 
As God Himself has ordained a specific office for the preaching 
of His word and the administration of His Sacraments, so He calls 
those who are to be entrusted with the commission. 

Jehovah Himself at first discharged the functions of religious 
teacher, when He proclaimed to Adam and Eve the law forbidding 
them to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen. 
ii. 17), and when He proclaimed the promise of salvation to the 
disconsolate spirits of that fallen pair, in the prediction that the 
seed of the woman should bruise the serpent's head (Gen. iii. 15). 
He then transferred the teaching office to men; to Adam first, 
and then to the patriarchs. These were the teachers and priests of 
the Church when the Church was confined to a single household, to 
a tribe, or to several tribes. He afterwards called Moses to the 
work of the ministry; and ordained the Aaronic and Levitical 
priesthood, through which, for many centuries, under the old cove- 
nant, He perpetuated the sacred office. Under the Mosaic dispen- 
sation He sent also many prophets, each one receiving his call and 
commission directly from heaven. 

In ushering in the New Dispensation this great office devolved 
upon the eternal Son. "God, who at sundry times and in divers 
manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath 
in these last days spoken unto us by His Son, whom He hath 
appointed heir of all things, by whom also He made the worlds" 
(Heb. i. 1, 2); Christ the Eternal Word (John i. 1); the Light 
of the World (John viii. 12); the Way, the Truth and the Life (John 
xiv. 6); the Prophet promised, when the Father said, "I will put 
my words in His mouth, and He shall speak unto them all that I shall 
command" (Deut. xviii. 18, 19); to Whom Peter said, " Lord, to 
whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life" (John 
vi. 68, 69) ; Christ the Eternal Word, for the space of three 
years, discharged the functions of the holy ministry, as it had never 
been before, and has not since. " Never man spake like this man" 
(John vii. 46). 

The twelve apostles and the seventy who were sent forth to teach, 
(Matt, x ) were selected by Christ Himself through a special, distinct 
and personal call. This was the beginning of the fulfillment of the 
promise that shepherds and teachers should be given to the New 
Testament Church : ' ' The Lord gave the word ; great was the 



296 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

company of those that published it " (Ps. lxviii. 11) ; " And I will 
give you pastors according to Mine heart, which shall feed you with 
knowledge and understanding" (Jer. hi. 15). 

When Christ commissioned the apostles and their successors He 
said : " All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth. Go 
ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of 
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost ; teaching them 
to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you (Matt, 
xxviii. 18-20). 

That ministers are called into the sacred office and clothed with 
pastoral functions by God is affirmed by the apostles. " God hath 
set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, 
thirdly teachers, after that miracles ; then gifts of healings, helps, 
governments, diversities of tongues" (1 Cor. xii. 28). God hath 
given to us the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. v. 18). "And 
He gave some, apostles; and some, prophets ; and some, evangelists; 
and some, pastors and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints, for 
the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ : 
till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of 
the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature 
of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. iv. n, 13). 

From these passages it is clear that the commission comes from 
Christ. The message to be delivered is His. The overture to be 
made by these ambassadors is His ; and He selects the agents or in- 
struments by whom his law is to be explained, His ordinances ad- 
ministered and His redemption offered to men. 

The fact that the public teachers of the Christian religion are 
directly called and commissioned from heaven, is set forth in those 
parables of the Saviour which describe the work of the servants of 
the Great Householder — the royal Lord of the kingdom of heaven. 
In the parable of the tares, the Lord commanded the servants not 
" to gather up the tares," lest they "root up also the wheat with 
them" (Matt. xiii. 29). The commission here is directly from the 
Master. In the parable of the laborers in the vineyard, the Lord of 
the vineyard went out early in the morning, and repeatedly at 
different hours, " to hire laborers into his vineyard" (Matt xx. 1). 
This call was personal, distinct, special. In the parable of the 
Great Householder, who let out to husbandmen his vineyard, 
planted and hedged, with its tower and winepress, it was the Lord 



DR. DIEHLS ESSAY. 297 

who sent his servants to receive a rental of fruit from the tenants. 
The agents were selected, commissioned, and sent by the Proprietor. 
(Matt. xxi. 33-37.) In the parable of the fruitless fig tree, the 
dresser of the vineyard is clothed with the authority and functions 
of his office immediately by the Lord. (Luke xiii. 6-8.) 

That ministers are called of God and equipped from above, is 
implied in the exhortation of the Saviour to His followers to pray 
for them. "Pray ye, therefore, the Lord of the harvest that he 
will send forth laborers into his harvest'' (Matt. ix. 38). 

We read in the Acts of the Apostles that when the first ministers, 
after those selected by Christ Himself, were to be chosen in the 
Christian Church, the assembled congregation besought the Lord 
to guide them in making the selection, thus recognizing the neces- 
sity of a call from above to the investiture of a genuine minister. 
In filling the vacancy in the apostolic college caused by the apos- 
tasy of Judas, the Church "prayed, and said, Thou Lord which 
knowest the hearts of all men, show us whether of these two Thou 
hast chosen, that he may take part of this ministry and apostle - 
ship" (Acts i. 24, 25). To ascertain the divine choice "they 
gave forth their lots : and the lot fell upon Matthias. ' ' The divine 
response to the prayer was unmistakable. The call of the Apostle 
Paul was still more strikingly from the Master. It was by an audi- 
ble voice, in a direct personal address, amid supernatural appear- 
ances and a distinct announcement that the One who spoke and 
called His servant into the ministry was Christ the Lord. 

This truth that men can be scripturally invested with the minis- 
terial office only by God and Christ is distinctly and forcibly stated 
by the recognized early Lutheran authorities . It is taught at least 
by implication in the Smalcald Articles. Luther says: "At first 
the apostles were chosen, not through human instrumentality, but 
directly by Jesus Christ and God. Others were called into the pas- 
toral office by God, but through men" (Kirchenpost, St. Andrew's 
day). Again: "I hope that all believers, and all who call them- 
selves Christians, will certainly know that the ministerial state was 
instituted and established by God" (Sermon on educating chil- 
dren). Again: "The laying on of hands is not a human statute, 
but God makes and ordains ministers, and it is not the priest 
(pfarrherr) who absolves thee, but the mouth and hand of the min- 
ister is the mouth and hand of God" (Com. Gen. xxviii. 17). By 



290 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

laying on of hands, Luther here evidently means investing a man 
with the holy office. He elsewhere says repeatedly, that the laying 
on of hands is merely a Church usage and not indispensable to or- 
dination. For instance, "while the ceremony of laying on of 
hands is something (impressive and proper), it is only a customary 
usage to call persons into the ministry of the Church." In saying, 
therefore, that the laying on of hands is not a human statute (men- 
schensatzung), he merely affirms the divine institution and ordina- 
tion of the ministry ; the ceremony uniformly practiced, although 
not essential to the validity of the office, being substituted, by a 
figure of speech, for the creation of the office itself. Again Luther 
says, after quoting Titus i. 5-7, "Whoever believes that the Holy 
Spirit here speaks through Paul, must know that this is a divine 
appointment and ordinance, that in every city or town, there should 
be one or more pastors" (Disc, on Abuses of the Mass, 1522). 
Chemnitz says : "That the ministry of the Word and Sacraments 
was instituted by the Son of God, is established beyond doubt. 
This is evident from the promise that God would approve the ap- 
pointment of those who are called through the voice of the Church; 
being made overseers over the flock by the Holy Ghost (Acts xx. 
28); and from the promise that God would bestow His grace and 
gifts to those called, whereby they should be able righty to fulfill 
the functions of the office ; breathing upon them the Holy Ghost 
(John xx. 22); giving them understanding of the Scripture; abid- 
ing with them (Matt, xxviii. 20); giving them mouth and wisdom 
(Luke xxi. 15); the spirit of the Father speaking through them 
(Matt. x. 19, 20). It is proven also by the promise that increase 
shall be given to the planting and watering by pastors, which will 
result in the calling and enlightening, the repentance and faith, the 
conversion and sanctification of the believers." 

In perfect accord with these statements are the declarations of 
Gerhard and others. On this point the testimony of Lutheran the- 
ologians is uniform. Not a dissenting voice is heard. 

The divine agency in the calling of men is thus so fully set forth 
in Scripture and so distinctly recognized in the standard authorities 
of the Church, that we can appreciate the force of the language 
when God in addressing the incumbents of the sacred office says, 
" I have given the priest's office unto you, as a gift of the Lord to 
do service" (Num. xviii. 6). Not only is the office given but the 



DR. DIEHL S ESSAY. 299 

men are chosen. ' ' He separated the tribe of Levi to bear the ark 
of the covenant of Jehovah and to stand before Him and minister 
unto Him." To the prophet He said, " I have made thee a watch- 
man unto Israel, therefore hear the word at My mouth and give 
them warning." " Thou shalt stand before Me. And if thou take 
forth the precious from the vile, thou shalt be as My mouth. And 
I will make thee unto this people a fenced brasen wall. For I am 
with thee to save thee and to deliver thee, saith the Lord" (Jer. xv. 
19-20). " I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which 
shall never hold their peace" (Isa. lxii. 6). "I have ordained thee 
a prophet unto the nations" (Jer. i. 5). In the intercession with 
which the Saviour closed His ministry on the earth, He said, " As 
thou hast sent Me, so have I also sent them into the world" (John 
xvii. 18). He said also to His ministers, "I have chosen you." 
And the great Apostle said, " Let a man so account of us as the 
ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor. 
iv. 1). "No man taketh this honor unto himself but he that is 
called of God, as was Aaron" (Heb. v. 4). 

The language of the poet is not therefore extravagant : 

" He alone his office holds 
Immediately from God ; from God receives 
Authority, and is to none but God 
Amenable * * * his call, 
His consecration, his anointing, all 
Are inward ; in the conscience heard and felt, 
Thus by Jehovah chosen and ordained, 
To take into his charge the souls of men ; 
And for his trust to answer at the day 
Of Judgment — great plenipotent of Heaven 
And representative of God on earth. 
* * * Burning with love to souls 
Unquenchable, and mindful still of his 
Great charge and vast responsibility, 
High in the temple of the living God, 
He stands amidst the people and declares 
Aloud the truth, the whole revealed truth, 
Ready to seal it with his blood." 

The Human Factor. 
The divine agency in investing men with the sacred office, since 
the age of miracles is past, although as real, is not so immediate and 
direct as it was in the call of the prophets. The manner and cir- 



300 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

cumstances are different now. No angelic appearance in the flame ; 
no burning bush ; no heavenly voice from the midst of the flame 
of fire, calling the subject by name; no audible utterance, "thou 
shalt say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you" 
(Ex. iii. 14); not as Moses was called; not as Paul was ; not as 
Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel and Elijah. God does 
not now speak in audible sounds to those who are called. He does 
not call them by name. He employs no miraculous circumstances. 
There is no communication by angels; no supernatural visions; no 
heaven-inspired dreams by which men are clearly informed of the 
divine vocation. They are called and clothed with the functions of 
the ministry by other means. The call comes from heaven but it 
must be recognized by the Church. By the Divine Spirit the 
Church is moved to ratify the work of heaven. The Church in the 
organization of a single congregation, or in an association of indi- 
vidual congregations, in a Synod, Council or Conference, must 
consent to clothe the candidate with ministerial functions. The 
flock must call him before he can feed the flock. 

In the human portion of the work there are two parties. It is 
not supposable that the Holy Spirit would work conviction in the 
minds of the members of a Church, that a particular person is 
divinely called to preach the Gospel without operating at the same 
time upon the mind of the subject of that call, producing a similar 
conviction that he is designated by the Great Head of the Church 
to be a religious teacher. The same divine agent that called the 
prophets in ways so manifest, and by speech so distinct, as to pro- 
duce absolute certainty in their convictions, does now, in ways less 
marvellous, and circumstances less imposing, produce a similar con- 
viction in the mind of every man whose ministry heaven has 
authenticated. 

The instrument employed by the spirit of God in the calling 
ministers, as in conversion and sanctification, is the trufh. Some 
portion of divine truth, or some aspects of the great Christian sys- 
tem, are vividly impressed on the soul. It may be that the youth 
who is about to be divinely invested with the high functions of the 
holy office, is led by the illumination of the Spirit to view the great 
harvest field, ripe for the sickle, and an overpowering impression 
rests on his soul that he should enter as one of the reapers. He 
may have so vivid a view of the millions who are perishing for lack 



DR. DIEHLS ESSAY. 3OI 

of knowledge, as to lead him to the resolution to become to some 
of those millions a religious guide. The truth impressed by the 
divine spirit on the mind may be the value of the soul ; — honors, 
riches, power, all the treasures of earth, are nothing in comparison, 
and the young man is moved by that consideration to devote his life- 
and energies to the work of saving souls. In looking at Gethsemane 
and Calvary, his mind may be so illumined as to see something of 
that unspeakable love and mercy, until all his faculties are moved, 
his heart melted, his soul roused, and the resolution rises up to 
spend all his energies in proclaiming a Saviour's love. Whatever 
portion of truth, or whatever aspect of it, is employed by God as 
the instrument of the illumination, the conviction and the resolu- 
tion, it is in this way that men are called. It is by a voice in the 
soul. God speaks; but it is to the inner spirit. It is a direct 
transaction between Christ and a redeemed man. 

But when the candidate for holy orders gives expression to his 
convictions, and announces to others his inner call, the Church 
must be satisfied that there is no delusion in his mind ; that it is not 
a fanatical impulse or transient emotion ; that it is not the prompt- 
ings of selfish ambition ; but that the call is genuine, that it is a 
voice from heaven The motives prompting the youth to make 
application for ordination must be inquired into, and the character 
of the feelings he has expressed. Other things must also be learned 
with reference to his fitness for the office. Has he the essential 
qualifications? Is he really pious? Has he good sense, sound 
judgment, correct taste? Is he possessed of gentlemanly instincts 
and a high sense bf honor ? Is he gifted with intellect and power 
of emotion ? Has he the requisite physical constitution and a good 
personal presence ? Has he voice and elQcution ? Has he mental 
training and stores of knowledge ? Has he sobriety of character 
and dignity of demeanor ? Has he such social qualities as will fit 
him for pastoral relations and pastoral work ? 

The investigation and decision of these questions is a part of 
the Church's work. In no service should the Church more fer- 
vently implore the divine guidance, than in deciding the question, 
whether an applicant for ministerial authority has been called by 
the Holy Spirit to preach the Gospel. A satisfactory conclusion 
having been reached that the candidate has the higher spiritual and 
divine credentials, his own deep impressions being corroborated by 



302 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

the possession of the essential qualifications for the office, the 
Church has a divine commission to invest him with ministerial 
functions. 

This authority is involved in the Church's spiritual priesthood, 
and in the possession of the keys of the kingdom of heaven. 
(Matt. xvi. 19, 20.) 

The Smalcald Articles teach, "The keys are an office and power 
of the Church given by Christ to bind and to loose sins, not only 
enormous and manifest, but also subtle and secret sins." Art. VII. 

"For wherever the Church is, there indeed is the command to 
preach the Gospel. For this reason the churches must retain the 
authority to call, to elect and ordain ministers. And this authority 
is a privilege which God has given especially to the Church ; and 
it cannot be taken away from the Church by any human power, as 
Paul testifies (Eph. iv. 8, n, 12), "When He ascended up on high, 
He led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men." And among 
these gifts, which belong to the Church, he enumerates pastors and 
teachers; and adds that these were given for the edifying of the 
Church. Wherefore it follows that wherever there is a true Church 
there is also the power to elect and ordain ministers." "To this 
point the declarations of Christ pertain, which show that the keys 
were given to the whole Church, and not to some particular persons ; 
as the Scripture saith, ' Where two or three are gathered together in 
My name, there am I in the midst of them' (Matt, xviii. 20)." 

"Finally this is also confirmed by the declaration of Peter, 'Ye 
are a royal priesthood" (1 Peter ii. 9). These words relate 
specially to the true Church, which, because it alone has the priest- 
hood, must also have the power to choose and ordain ministers." 

' ' The common usages of the Church likewise prove this ; for in 
former times the people elected clergymen and bishops ; then the 
bishops living in or near the same place came and confirmed the 
elected bishop, by the laying on of hands ; and at thai: time, the 
ordination was nothing else but this approbation." (Appendix 
to Smalcald Articles.) 

Melanchthon says : "God instituted and commanded the pas- 
toral office, and annexed to it glorious promises ; ' The Gospel is 
the power of God unto salvation to all that believe' (Rom. i. 16). 
' My word that goeth forth out of my mouth shall not return unto 
me void, but shall accomplish that which I please' " (Isaiah lv. it). 



DR. DIEHL'S ESSAY. 303 

"The Church has the command of God to appoint preachers and 
deacons. While this is very precious, we know that God will preach 
and work through men, and those who have been elected by man" 
(Apol., Art. 13). 

The Augsburg Confession says, "This power of the keys is put 
in execution only by teaching or preaching the Gospel, and admin- 
istering the Sacraments, either to many or to single individuals, in 
accordance with their call ; for thereby not only corporal things, 
but eternal, are granted, as an eternal righteousness, the Holy Ghost, 
life everlasting. These things cannot be got but by the ministry of 
the Word and the Sacraments" (Art. 28). 

Luther says, "It is God's will that we go and hear the Gospel 
from those who preach it." 

Chemnitz says, "It is true that God begins, works, increases and 
carries forward, by His power, operation, incitement, and inspira- 
tion, whatever appertains to calling, enlightening, conversion, 
repentance, faith, renewal, in short, whatever belongs to the work 
of our salvation ; but God had determined, according to His 
declared counsel, that He will accomplish this, not by the infusion 
of new and special revelations, enlightenments and movements 
(tractatibus) in the souls of men, without the use of means, but 
through the external ministry of the Word. This office, however, 
He did not entrust to angels, that the appearance of them should 
be sought and expected ; but to men did He commit the ministry of 
reconciliation ; and He wills that through these ministers the voice 
of the Gospel shall be sounded. Not every believer is allowed to 
take upon himself the office of publicly preaching the Word and 
administering the Sacraments, but only those who have received 
from God a genuine call ; and this occurs either immediately or 
through means. And the right and authentic way of such a divine 
call is by the voice of the Church." 

The investing of men with the functions of the ministerial office, 
is clearly entrusted by God to the Church. To the full constitution 
of the Church there must be pastors as well as a flock, for the 
Gospel must be preached and the Sacraments administered. The 
Church, necessarily, whether by the ministry alone, or by the com- 
bined action of clergy and laity, must perpetuate the sacred office, 
by calling, electing, and ordaining those who are publicly to teach 
the Word and administer the Sacraments. The procedure of 



304 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

calling the first minister by the Church, is stated in the Acts of the 
Apostles. In the choice of Matthias to the high office of the 
apostleship, not only the eleven , but the whole multitude of assem- 
bled disciples took part. It would be a violent and unauthorized 
construction to assume that the one hundred and twenty were all 
ministers (Acts i. 15-26). The choice, however, was not definite. 
They appointed two men, and then invoked God to decide by lot 
which of the two He had chosen. When, at the suggestion of Peter, 
deacons were chosen, the election was made by the whole multitude 
of disciples (Acts vi. 1-6). But there remains a question to be 
settled as to the office then instituted, whether its functions were 
limited to the temporalities of the Church, or embraced the com- 
mission which at least two of them, Stephen and Philip, afterwards 
executed, in preaching and baptizing. Luther says, "A whole 
congregation or church shall have power to elect and install 
a pastor." 

While it is distinctly stated that Paul and Barnabas " ordained 
them elders in every church" (Acts xiv : 23) planted in their first 
missionary tour, we are not informed as to the part taken in the 
choice of the persons to be made pastors, by the people. Some 
maintain that the great apostle and his missionary fellow-laborer, 
regulated this according to their own judgment. Others affirm that 
we have no right to assume that the congregation did not in every 
case acquiesce, and virtually elect their religious instructors by de- 
signating the men to be ordained. Where Scripture is silent, it is as 
easy to affirm one thing as the other. It is impossible to decide, 
beyond all doubt, in the absence of Scripture statements, whether 
the people did or did not take part. The early Lutheran authorities, 
however, have very generally maintained that the congregations 
did either indicate or endorse the selections made by the Apostles. 
It can scarcely be questioned that the people gave at least tacit ac- 
quiescence. Even if the apostles did, under the authority and 
wisdom of their higher inspiration, regulate exclusively the choice 
of pastors for the newly-organized churches, this would not settle 
the question as to the course to be pursued after apostolic times, 
when special inspiration was no longer vouchsafed to the ministry. 

John Wigand says, "The Church in every place, that is, the 
whole assembly, both laity and clergy, jointly have the power to 
elect suitable ministers, to call and ordain them ; also to expel and 



DR. DIEHL'S ESSAY. 305 

depose false teachers, and those who by scandalous and immoral 
lives would injure the cause of piety.' ' 

The Wittenberg theologians say, "We do not say that the 
Romish method of calling pastors is in every particular wrong, in 
that the bishops ordain ministers ; but we cannot approve their 
course in placing pastors over churches without the knowledge or 
consent of the people, because according to the old saying (aussage) 
' The calling of a pastor, without the consent of the people, is null 
and void.' " 

Chemnitz says : " Here it may be asked, who are they by whose 
voice the sanction and call of ministers is to take place, so that it 
may be regarded a divine appointment, that is, that God by that 
instrument is calling and sending the laborers into His harvest ? 
For deciding this point we find certain clear examples in the Scrip- 
tures. When an apostle was to be chosen in place of Judas, Peter 
laid the matter not before the apostles alone, but before all the assem- 
bled disciples, the number being one hundred and twenty. (Acts i. 
15.) He showed from the Scriptures how such a choice was to be 
made, and from among whom to select, and commands were an- 
nexed (adjunguntur orationes). The lot was used, because being 
the choice of an apostle, it should not be entirely by human instru- 
mentality, (quia non debeat esse simpliciter mediata sed apostolica 
vocatio), but afterward in the calling of ministers the lot was not 
used. When deacons were to be called and elected, the apostles 
would not claim the right of making the choice alone, but called the 
congregation together. Yet they did not surrender the calling of 
ministers entirely, and entrust it to the blind and ungoverned will- 
fulness of the people or the multitude ; but took the direction and 
control of the choice into their own hands. They gave instruction 
and regulations as to whom they should elect, and how. Thus the 
elected were placed before the apostles, that by their judgment it 
should be decided whether the election was a proper one and had 
been rightly made. The apostles ratified the election by the laying 
on of hands and by prayer. Paul and Barnabas ordained elders in 
every church established by them. (Acts xiv. 23.) But they did 
not assume the right and authority exclusively of electing and 
installing pastors ; but Luke uses the word x eL P 0T0V v aavr£ ~, which (2 
Cor. viii. 19) is used concerning the election, which took place by 
the vote of the congregation ; the same being taken from a Greek 



306 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

usage, giving their votes by stretching forth the hand, and signifies 
the investing of some one with the office by votes, to designate 
him or give their consent. Paul and Barnabas, therefore, did not 
impose presbyters on the Church against the will of the people, 
without seeking their consent. And when men were to be chosen 
who should be sent to convey to the Church at Antioch the charge 
or decision of the Church, Luke says : ' It pleased the apostles, 
and elders, and the whole Church, to send chosen men of their own 
company to Antioch with Paul and Barnabas' (Acts xv. 22). It 
is necessary to observe in the history of the apostles, that some- 
times the ministers and the rest of the congregation jointly elected 
whom they thought worthy of the sacred office. (Acts i. 23.) 
Sometimes the congregation made the choice, and submitted it to 
the judgment of the apostles, whether the election should be rat- 
ified. (Acts vi. 5, 6.) Often the apostles, who were the best judges 
of the fitness of men, proposed to the Church whom they thought 
worthy of the ministry, and when the consent and suffrage of the 
people was added, the call was consummated. So Paul sent Tim- 
othy, Titus, Sylvanus, etc., to the churches. So, in Acts xiv., 
twenty-three elders were selected, to whom the Church per x^porovlav, 
had given their consent. In the meantime, some offered them- 
selves to the Church. (1 Tim. iii. 1.) 'If a man desire the 
office of a bishop, he desire th a good work.' Yet, always in 
apostolic times, in every case of the regular investiture of men 
with the pastoral office, both the consent of the congregation and 
the approval and ratification of the ministerium were given. Thus 
was Titus sent to Crete to direct and control the election of elders, 
that it should be done in a proper manner, and that the rightly- 
conducted election should be approved and ratified by ordination. 
Therefore, Paul, Titus 1. 5, concerning the investiture of men 
with the office of elder, employs the same word which occurs Acts 
xiv. 23, where at the same time he mentions also x £ 'P 0T0V ' ia ? , and 
the ordination of elders. So he instructs Titus that he should 
sharply reprove those who are not sound in doctrine, nor in what 
they ought to teach. And this he says clearly (1 Tim. v. 22), ( Lay 
hands suddenly on no man, neither be partaker of other men's 
sins,' namely, by ratifying a call which was not rightly made. 
These examples from apostolic history show clearly, that the elec- 
tion or calling belongs to the whole Church in a specific way, so 



DR. DIEHLS ESSAY. 307 

that in the election or calling the ministerium have their part and 
the people have their part. And this apostolic method of choosing 
and calling into the ministerial office was retained in the Church 
later. When afterwards emperors and kings embraced the Christian 
religion, their wish, judgment and authority began to be sought 
and required, which was proper, as they were the foster-parents of 
the Church. This was the sentiment of the apostolic, primitive and 
ancient Church, concerning the legitimate election and calling of 
men into the ministry of the Word and Sacraments, which sentiment 
appertains to those Churches which are already established by the 
word of God, embracing a ministry sound in doctrine, a Christian 
government, and a pious people, well indoctrinated in the truth." 

John Gerhard says, "To the Church belongs the pastoral office. 
1 Cor. viii. 21 : 'All things are yours whether Paul, or Apollos, 
or Cephas.' Therefore, the Church has a delegated right to appoint 
worthy teachers of the Word, and God desires to be served by the 
calling of pious men into the ministry." 

His train of argument is somewhat similar to that of Chemnitz. 
He reduces the work of making ministers into a systematic division. 
He says: "Although no specific rule can be prescribed for every 
individual case, yet if we would give a comprehensive portraiture, 
we would say, to the ministerium belong the examination, ordina- 
tion and installation ; to the Christian government, the nomination, 
the presentation, and the confirmation ; and to the congregation, 
the consent, the election, the approval, or according to circum- 
stances, the petitioning (postulatio)." 

Many Lutheran theologians of the present day have not adopted 
the construction put upon some of the passages of Scripture quoted 
by Chemnitz and Gerhard. The former affirm that in the appoint- 
ment of Matthias there was no election ; that the appeal was to 
God, who decided the choice by lot ; that the deacons appointed 
by the multitude (Acts vi.) were not ministers, but lay-officers to 
manage the temporalities of the congregation ; that Titus was left 
in Crete to ordain ministers, and no intimation is given that the 
congregations took any part in the election ; that when Paul and 
Barnabas ordained elders for the newly planted churches in Asia 
Minor, the congregations took no part in the transaction. 

A different view from this was taken by the earlier theologians of 
the Church, as was noticed in the passages cited from Chemnitz and 



308 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

Gerhard. These affirm that there was an election or selection by 
the whole congregation of one hundred and twenty to fill the va- 
cancy in the apostolic college ; that the election was as real as any 
could be, only not definite, that is, they elected two, and then 
called on God to decide which of two He had chosen. So far as 
this election went, laity and clergy took equal part, and being the 
first instance in the calling of a minister in which the Church was 
one of the factors and God the other, the rule of lay-participation 
was established. They also hold that the deacons chosen (Acts 
vi.) were not merely temporal officers, to secure a just and impar- 
tial distribution of the charities of the Church ; that their first work 
was the control of these temporalities, but that without any addi- 
tional commission (so far as the history shows), beyond the diacon- 
ate, several are presented to us as performing ministerial acts (cer- 
tainly one) both preaching and baptizing. 

They further hold that, the principle once laid down that the 
entire Church, clerical and la^, should take part in the investiture of 
men with the sacred office, these first transactions flash light through 
all subsequent ordinations mentioned in the New Testament ; that 
an apostolic principle cannot be contravened by the apostles them- 
selves ; that inspired men would not adopt one rule at Jerusalem, 
and another in Crete ; that the practice pursued twice by the 
Mother Church at Jerusalem under apostolic guidance, would cer- 
tainly be followed by Paul and Barnabas in Asia Minor and by 
Titus in Crete. 

By a process of reasoning in this way the great theologians of 
the Church immediately after the Reformation, came to adopt the 
theory above stated. 

In the proper treatment of my subject it is not necessary to settle 
the question of difference on this point. The general position laid 
down in this essay, viz.: that the Church is one of the factors in 
the calling and ordination of ministers is fully endorsed by all Lu- 
theran theologians. 

What must be the dignity of an office which the everlasting 
Father and the eternal Son once filled, and which in the present 
dispensation of the Spirit, God and the Church unite in laying on 
men ? How carefully should the candidate inquire into the genu- 
ineness of his call. How strictly should the Church heed the ad- 
monition, "Lay hands suddenly on no man." 



DISCUSSION. 3O9 

If there be two factors in the making of a minister, can the one 
party without clear authority from the other undo the work ? Can 
the Church scripturally and rightfully depose a minister except for 
soul-destroying heresy, or for flagrant immorality, unquestionably 
proven in a fair trial ? 

Can a minister demit the holy office without direct authority from 
heaveu and the full consent of the Church ? And what should be 
regarded as adequate proof that God has authorized the demission? 

Some points presented in this paper were discussed by Rev. N. M. 
Price, Dr. Mann, Dr. Brown and Dr. Conrad. 

REMARKS OF REV. N. M. PRICE. {General Synod.) 
Rev. Price did not agree with the sentiment advanced in the essay, 
that God does not call men by an audible voice, or by supernatural 
means. He believed that some men are called in these marvellous 
ways. Luther was called by a clap of thunder and a flash of light- 
ning killing Alexis his college friend. God's power to work won- 
ders has not ceased. 

REMARKS OF REV. W. J. MANN, D. D. {General Council.) 

Dr. Mann remarked that, in his judgment, the views advanced by 
Dr. Diehl in the essay, and the point raised by Mr. Price, could be 
harmonized. He supposed the author of the essay would admit that 
God might work miracles in this age, if there were any necessity 
for it; but the paper read merely affirmed that God does not 
call men now by a voice from heaven, or a burning bush, or 
visions of angels. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. A. BROWN, D. D. {General Synod.) 

Dr. Brown would be surprised if any one in this nineteenth century, 
and in this Diet, should indorse the construction put upon some of 
the Scripture passages cited, which, indeed, the early Lutheran 
theologians did so interpret. But there is no truth in it. There 
was no election in the call of Matthias — merely a decision by lot. 



310 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

The deacons were not ministers, but lay officers. Not a word is 
said in Scripture about Paul, and Barnabas, and Titus, calling the 
congregations together to get their vote. It is all groundless as- 
sumption. 

Having been informed that the essayist cited those texts only in 
quotations from Chemnitz and Gerhard to set forth their views and 
the arguments by which they sustained them, the subject assigned him 
being the divine and human factors in the call into the ministry as 
held by Lutheran authorities, Dr. Brown said that for that purpose 
it was perfectly legitimate. The theory of those older Lutherans 
was correctly stated, and the citation of their arguments faithfully 
made. Yet their interpretations on those points were untenable. 

REMARKS OF REV. F. W. CONRAD, D. D. {General Synod.) 

I do not agree with some of the representations concerning the 
call to the ministry, just read. According to a general notion, the 
call to the ministry comes directly from God, is addressed to particu- 
lar individuals, and is revealed to them by the Holy Spirit in an ex- 
tra ordinary manner. Prompted by the conviction thus produced, 
the subject of it makes known his call and the Church is expected to 
endorse it, and to aid him in preparing for the ministry. Thus the 
question is not decided by self-knowledge and adaptation for the 
work, but by an impulse, desire, impression, or notion entertained 
by the individual. The Church is not called upon to exercise her 
judgment in regard to the existence of the necessary qualifications, 
as the indispensable marks of a true call to the ministry, but to take 
it for granted that the person presenting himself is truly called. 
She is accordingly expected to furnish him the necessary aid in the 
expectation that the qualifications necessary for the successful pros- 
ecution of the ministry, will be developed in the applicant in due 
time. 

I hold on the contrary, that the true call to the ministry involves 
the following characteristics : The natural constitutional capacities 



DISCUSSION. 3 1 1 

conferred by creation ; true piety, or the spiritual qualifications be- 
stowed through redemption ; the conscious obligation to devote 
life to the glory of God ; the conviction, based upon self-knowledge, 
that he possesses the necessary natural and spiritual qualifications ; 
and the further conviction, wrought by the ordinary influences of 
the Holy Spirit through the truth, that in the ministry he could, in 
the highest degree, glorify God in the service of the Church to 
which he belongs. 

These characteristics will not develop themselves, but must be 
cultivated by the Church, in order to develop the conviction of a 
call to the ministry in the candidate, corroborated by the facts in 
his case. The natural faculties must be developed by education ; 
the spiritual qualifications by the means of grace ; the obligation to 
make the glory of God the supreme object of life, by special in- 
struction j and the conviction that through the vocation of the min- 
istry the highest usefulness could be attained by self-examination, 
consultation and study. In thus developing the call to the min- 
istry, parents, teachers, professors, pastors, and members of the 
Church, should all take part. To the ministry alone is entrusted 
the decision of the possession of the qualifications necessary to con- 
stitute a true call, and the introduction into the office by licensure 
and ordination ; and to the laity alone, the election of the candi- 
date, to the pastorship of the congregation in which he is thus au- 
thorized to exercise the functions of his office. 

The informing idea of a call to the ministry is that of adaptation 
to the successful prosecution of the work, and the attainment of 
highest usefulness. By this judgment the Father was governed in 
calling the Son to the work of redemption; Christ in calling the 
seventy disciples and the twelve apostles ; the apostles in selecting 
elders to become pastors of the churches, and the churches in 
choosing deacons and deaconesses. In no case did the individual 
present himself, and reveal the fact that he was called to this or that 
special work, based upon his own impression, notion, or judgment. 
In each case, on the contrary, the judgment of others was brought 



312 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

into requisition, in looking out for those possessed of the required 
qualifications for the service needed, and by revealing such judg- 
ment to the persons interested, awakening the conviction of the call 
of duty, and leading them to respond to it, by entering upon, and 
prosecuting, the special work pointed out to them. 

Every theory must, in order to maintain its verity, interpret all 
the facts pertaining to its sphere. The ordinary theory of the call 
to the ministry cannot meet this requisition in a single case, while 
the theory whose characteristics I have endeavored to present, 
accords with all the passages of Scripture bearing on the subject, 
and its truthfulness is further illustrated by every example of a call 
to the ministry given in the New Testament. 

REMARKS OF REV. W. J. MANN, D. D. {General Council) 
Dr. Mann differed from Dr. Conrad. He would like to know 
whether Dr. Conrad was called by his parents or religious instructors 
seeking him out and telling him he had a call to preach, or whether 
he was moved by the Spirit in his soul. 

REMARKS OF REV. J. A. BROWN, D. D. {General Synod.) 
Dr. Brown dissented from the views expressed by Dr. Conrad. 
That process would be no call from God. He believed the divine 
Spirit operates in the soul of the subject and leads him to seek the 
ministry. The call is subjective The conviction of its being a 
duty to preach the Gospel is wrought by God. As v the spirit of 
the prophets is subject to the prophets/' this inward call and con- 
viction must be submitted to the judgment and decision of the 
Church, properly exercised. Parents, teachers, pastors, may be in- 
struments, but the divine agent in the call is the Holy Ghost. 1 

The last paper was then read. 

'Discussion, with exception of Dr. Conrad's remarks, reported by Dr. Diehl. 



THE EDUCATIONAL AND SACRAMENTAL IDEAS OF 

THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN RELATION 

TO PRACTICAL PIETY. 

BY REV. A. C. WEDEKIND, D. D., NEW YORK. 

BEYOND all controversy, God has given His Holy Word as the 
principal means of grace. In it He does not only reveal His 
adorable nature and character, but He sets forth, specifically, His 
benevolent purpose to redeem man ; pointing out to him clearly 
what he is to know and to believe, to experience and to practice ; 
and then graciously proffers him the aids through which he can 
yield compliance with these holy demands. The sacred Scriptures, 
therefore, are designed to be, to man's believing apprehension, both 
the power and the wisdom of God unto salvation. 

Beyond all controversy, too, the centre of this Divine Revelation, 
in both the Old and the New Testaments, is the Lord Jesus Christ. 
The law, ceremonies, and types of the Old Testament, as they are 
related to man's recovery, pointed like so many finger-boards to the 
coming Messiah, as the hope of Israel ; whilst the New Testament 
sets him forth as the One, who, " in the fullness of time," actually 
appeared, and who is thenceforward the eternally present help and 
hope of man. Christ, then, is at once the embodiment and fulfill- 
ment of the law, as well as the living, incarnate Gospel. "He is 
the end of the law for righteousness," as well as the only perfect 
type and pattern of it. He alone is " the Way, the Truth, and the 
Life," through whom man can come to the Father. As the God- 
man, uniting in Himself personally Deity and humanity, he has 
effectively, through His righteousness, suffering and death, expiated 
all human guilt. Hence, whosoever hears, believes and trusts His 
Word, without the ability or opportunity to attend to any other 
means of grace, will be saved. 

This disposes of the twaddle, so frequently indulged in when the 
nature and efficacy of the Sacraments are considered, in reference 
21 (3*3) 



3 14 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

to the thief on the cross, to whom Christ opened the gates of Par- 
adise ; and of Mary Magdalene, whom He sent away "in peace," 
as a freely forgiven sinner. 

But this divinely inspired Word, "which is able to save our 
souls" (James i. 21); "which is the incorruptible seed of which 
we are born again" (1 Peter i. 23) ; through which we are "built 
up and have an inheritance among them that are sanctified" (Acts 
xx. 32); which gives us "a good hope through grace" (2 Thess. ii. 
14-16); this blessed Word, to which the Lutheran Church, amidst 
all changes and vicissitudes, lapses of men and alterations of opin- 
ions, has so steadfastly adhered, adding nothing, subtracting noth- 
ing, altering nothing ; this unchanging and unchangeable Word, 
reveals to us that God in mercy and great condescension has estab- 
lished and ordained certain Rites and Ordinances, called in the 
Church Sacraments, for high and holy purposes in relation to man's 
recovery from the thralldom of sin, and his introduction and sup- 
port in the kingdom of grace. It is my delightful theme to show 
you the Educational and Sacramental Ideas of the Lutheran 
Church in Relation to Practical Piety. 

Or in other words : What relation do these holy Rites or Ordi- 
nances sustain in the divine economy, to secure the gracious ends 
proposed, according to Lutheran views ? There are two distinct 
branches of my subject — the Educational and the Sacramental. 
The former, in its positive aspect, will meet us further on ; but it 
may be brought into essential unity with the latter through the in- 
cidental educational effect upon the Church at large, resulting from 
the discussions of the Sacraments themselves. And these effects 
are in every way important, as they set men to thinking, to com- 
pare views and ideas with counter views and ideas, thus leading her 
members, like the " more noble Bereans, to search and see whether 
these things be so." A world of good has thus been done by our 
theologians — however much abused for it — who, in the spirit of 
true churchliness and Lutheran orthodoxy, have devoted themselves 
so largely to the setting forth the Church's views upon these doc- 
trines. As the two Sacraments, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, 
may be regarded as a mirror in which the whole of Christianity is 
reflected as in a miniature portrait, every minutia in regard to 
them becomes important. Hence the dispassionate, didactic dis- 
cussion of them cannot but be beneficial. As a historical fact, of 



DR. WEDEKIND S ESSAY. 3 I 5 

great significance in this connection, it may be mentioned that in 
the dreary period of Rationalism, when piety was banished from 
the domain of learning, and had to seek her retreat in the cottages 
of the humble and the lowly, such discussions were "like angel 
visits, few and far between." They were sneered at with supercil- 
ious hauteur, as belonging to the swaddling clothes of an infantile 
age of the Church, which the boasted age of reason had fully out- 
grown. And it may further be mentioned, that with the revival of 
these discussions came the revival of genuine piety. Indeed, how 
could it be otherwise? When the divinely appointed means of 
grace were lightly esteemed, how could grace itself grow? How 
could true godliness flourish, when men knew not how to advance 
in it ; when human notions, bald and shallow, were substituted 
for Christ's teachings and Christ's mysteries ? 

Nor was the case very much different with the Church here in 
this western world, in the days of her sifting ; when in a false spirit 
of accommodation she was rapidly losing her identity, becoming the 
common hunting ground for every ism by which she was surrounded; 
when her inner glory was concealed, her gold became dim, and 
the seamless robe which her Master had put upon her was covered 
by the cast-off rags, either of frigid formalism on the one hand, or 
of wild fanaticism on the other : in both those periods the earnest 
voice or forceful pen seldom set forth her distinctive doctrines of 
the means of grace, and in both periods " the logic of events" 
tended alike to her ultimate extinction. It was with the revival of 
searching, exhaustive discussion of these things, that her true life- 
blood filled again her arteries with vigorous and healthy progress. 
It is, therefore, no longer an open question that her Educational 
Ideas in this direction tended to practical piety ; that piety, we 
mean, which is rooted and grounded in the positive doctrines and 
institutions of God's Word ; which is above the tide-mark of strait- 
laced formalism, or effervescent emotionalism, but which is a real 
product and growth of divine truth, embraced and enshrouded by 
the heart's holiest affections. 

We see, of course, a good deal yet of the retiring spray of the 
storms that have passed over the Church, in the loose and unscrip- 
tural views that still linger in her ranks. The heaving billows are 
not yet fully at rest, as every pastor knows whose eyes and ears are 
open to the things that transpire around him. To many of his 



3 l6 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

members the external ceremonies of the Sacraments only remain, 
and they attend to them as mere matters of form, transmitted to 
them from a former generation. Baptism, e. g., in many families, 
has no higher significance than that the child gets a name ; in 
others it is the occasion of a joyous family feast, sometimes followed 
with music and dance. With others still, it is a sort of "Mrs. 
Winslow's Soothing Syrup." The child is cross ; the mother tired ; 
and the rite of Baptism is called in to quiet the infant and give the 
mother rest. Not unfrequently when a pastor comes into the house 
of a parishioner, a child is brought to him with the remark : " This 
is the man that put water on your head ;" or " This is the man that 
gave you a name ! !" Of the sublime mysteries connected with 
that event they are as profoundly ignorant as though they were 
Hottentots. 

This brings to view, then, the main point of my theme, viz., 
The Sacramental Ideas of the Lutheran Church, in Relation 
to Practical Piety. 

Now, to graduate their effect, we must first know what those ideas 
are. Of course this necessitates the placing before you the doc- 
trines of the Lutheran Church with regard to the Sacraments. It 
is a grand theme, second to none in importance, of the mighty 
and timely topics that have already been discussed, or that may yet 
follow. And from my heart do I wish that abler hands had been 
employed to handle it, for it involves the very centre around which 
nearly all the confessional divergencies revolve. In approaching it, 
methinks I hear the divine injunction : "Take the shoes from off 
thy feet, for the ground whereon thou standest is holy ground." 
May Isaiah's blessing be mine, and Cornelius' grace be yours ! 

WHAT, THEN, IS A SACRAMENT? 

It is an institution, not of man's devising, but of God's ordain- 
ing. It is not a human invention, but a divine appointment. No 
human authority can make Sacraments in the Evangelical sense of 
that term. No Church can do it ; and the authority claimed to 
establish seven, might, with equal propriety, have designated 
twenty. God, and God only, can do this. 

" A Sacrament," says Schmid in his Evangelische Dogmatik, " is 
a holy rite, appointed by God, through which, by means of an 
external and visible sign, saving grace is imparted to a man, or if he 



DR. WEDEKIND S ESSAY. 31/ 

already possess it, is assured to him. The Evangelical Church 
enumerates two such rites, Baptism and the Lord's Supper ; for only- 
through these two rites, in accordance with the direction of Christ, 
is such saving grace imparted ; and among all the sacred ordinances 
prescribed in the Scriptures, it is only in these two that these distin- 
guishing characteristics are combined, viz.: (1) A special, divine 
purpose, in accordance with which, in the sacred rite, an external 
element is to be thus employed ; and (2) the promise given in the 
divine Word, that by the application of this element, Evangelical 
saving grace shall be imparted." The usual definition that "a Sac- 
rament is a visible sign of invisible grace ' ' is only half true ; and 
the more important half of the truth is not even intimated in the 
definition, as will appear when we consider 

THE DESIGNS OF THE SACRAMENTS. 

These are various, though unique, all aiming at man's highest 
spiritual interest. The time allowed me in this paper precludes, of 
course, any other than a mere indication of each. 

(1) As churchly transactions, Sacraments are first confessional. 
In and through them the subject of them confesses himself to be a 
disciple of Christ, and therefore a member of His Church. The 
very term Sacrament implies "to consecrate," "to vow allegiance 
to." Sacraments are, therefore, in this sense, badges of Christian 
discipleship. "Go ye into all the world and make disciples of all 
nations, baptizing them," was the Lord's own command. " The 
cup of blessing which we bless," etc., "For we being many are 
one bread, and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread," 
is St. Paul's statement. In both, the individual participant declares 
himself to be a member of the "sacramental host of the Lord;" a 
member of that mystical body of which Christ Himself is the all- 
glorious head : under the most solemn obligation of fidelity "to 
Him who is God over all, blessed for evermore." 

The practical tendency of this design of the holy Sacraments can 
hardly be overestimated. As every Roman soldier who deserted his 
standard was not only thereby disgraced, but also liable to the 
severest punishment, so the church-member who violates his sacra- 
mental covenant with God, who fails to "come up to the help of 
the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty," exposes him- 
self to the sorest displeasure of King Emmanuel. And one reason 



3l8 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

why there are so many tepid Christians in the Church — lukewarm 
disciples — is that they are so rarely reminded that their names stand 
on the muster-roll of Christ's army; that He "has need of them" 
and expects them to do their whole duty in the mighty conflict 
waging against sin and the devil. Each Roman soldier who had 
taken the " sacramentum? 1 regarded the honor and success of the 
whole army as committed to his individual care and keeping, and 
this conviction made him a veritable hero. He stood like a rock in 
in the day of trial, as is so beautifully illustrated in "The Last 
Days of Pompeii" The tremendous deluge of fire is sweeping to- 
wards the doomed city, and its various inmates, following the bent 
of their minds, seek the things most prized by them ; some, as the 
late excavations so strikingly illustrate, have their hands on their 
money-drawers — others are collecting their jewels — others still are 
gathering around them their loved ones — whilst the Roman soldier, 
halberd in hand, covered with ashes, soot and scoria, is found stand- 
ing at his post of duty at one of the city's gates, a monument of 
fidelity to his sacramental obligation. 

(2) Another design of the Sacraments is that they are signs and 
seals of spiritual blessings. Man cannot promise divine grace ; 
neither can he put a seal to a divine promise, with which to authen- 
ticate it. Such a transaction would be a stupendous fraud. Sacra- 
ments are therefore not human works which men originate, but divine 
institutions of mercy, of which men are the objects and recipients. 
They are indissolubly connected with the Word, without which 
they are nothing and profit nothing. Hence they are, as already 
mentioned, in themselves a miniature gospel, and are, therefore, 
sometimes called the "visible Word" through which the Holy 
Ghost especially exhibits and seals the general promises of gospel 
grace to the believer; assuring him thus, in the most impressive and 
solemn manner, of the blessings of the covenant of grace. In 
human transactions a seal is attached to a document, not to add to 
the contents of that document, but to attest its binding force and 
irreversible nature. So God has not only promised purity, pardon 
and peace, but remembering our weakness, and how strongly we 
are impressed by sensible objects, He has appointed these ordinances 
as seals or pledges of His promises. " The simple assurance given 
to Noah that the earth should not a second time be destroyed by a 
deluge, might have been a sufficient foundation for confidence; bu 



DR. WEDEKINDS ESSAY. 3I9 

God saw fit to appoint the rainbow to be a perpetual confirmation 
of His covenant; and through all generations, when the bow appears, 
men feel that it is not merely a sign of the returning sun, but a 
divinely appointed pledge of the promise of God." So, too, the 
promise of deliverance from Egyptian bondage, given to the Israel- 
ites, was in itself sufficient to assure them that, in the accomplish- 
ment of His promise, the destroying angel should pass over their 
houses without disturbing any of their inmates ; yet it pleased Him 
to appoint the blood of the paschal lamb as the sign and seal of this 
covenant. In like manner, God, willing more abundantly to show 
unto His people the immutability of His promise, has confirmed it 
by these seals, to assure them that, as certainly as they receive the 
signs of the blessings of the covenant, so certainly shall they receive 
the blessings themselves. 

(3) And this brings to view the primary design of the Sacra- 
ments, viz.: "The offering, conferring and applying, as well as 
sealing of gospel grace." " Gospel grace is offered to all who use 
the Sacraments ; it is conferred on all who worthily use them ; it is 
applied and sealed to adult believers." Sacraments are, therefore, 
channels through which the covenanted blessings are conveyed to 
the worthy recipient of them. The testamentary parchment that 
contains the friendly bequest of a large fortune to me, is not simply 
the sign or the seal of my inheritance, but the instrument that con- 
veys it to me. It would be a poor satisfaction, indeed, to be con- 
tent with the paper as the mere sign of the kind intention of the 
testator, whilst the rich contents remained unappropriated. The 
value and importance of the paper consist in the fortune it conveys 
to me. 

So our blessed Lord, whose "unsearchable riches" have been 
bequeathed to his followers in express terms of "the New Testa- 
ment in His blood" has clearly stated. As the divine Word is en- 
dowed with supernatural efficacy to produce regenerating, renew- 
ing and sanctifying effects on the minds of men, when, through the 
Divine Spirit, it is believingly apprehended, so the Sacraments, 
which are the visible Word, communicate, through the same holy 
agency, what the gracious Lord Himself has put into them. They 
are His appointed channels to confer and apply His general prom- 
ises of grace, specifically and especially to their worthy individual 
recipients. Nothing less than this can satisfy the strong language 



320 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

of the Scriptures on this subject, or the experience of God's people. 
When baptism is called the washing of regeneration (Titus iii. 5), 
when it is said to unite us to Christ (Gal. iii. 27), to make us par- 
takers of His death and life (Rom. vi. 4, 5), to wash away our sins, 
(Acts xxii. 16), to save the soul (1 Pet. iii. 21); and when the 
bread and wine in the Lord's Supper are said to be the body and 
the blood of Christ, the partaking of which secures union with 
Christ, and participation of the merits of His death (1 Cor. x. 16, 
17), it is the merest, sheerest, baldest logomachy, as well as the 
most unenviable piety, to fritter away such unqualified declarations 
of the Holy Ghost, into mere hyperboles, or simple signs and sym- 
bols. We ask with great emphasis, where is there anything of this 
sort in the bond ? Is it there ? No ? Then by what authority do 
you put it there ? Who gave you the authority to amend the teach- 
ings of the Holy Ghost ? Ten thousand times shame on your 
wicked presumption ! Would you have ever dreamed of it had not 
Rome in her frenzy taught the ex opere operato theory ? No ? Then 
why do you suppose that two wrongs will make a right ? Has the Lu- 
theran Church ever taught you any such notion? Far from it. 
She teaches you most explicitly that faith is necessarily required in 
order to the reception of the salutary efficacy of the Sacraments. If 
the Sacraments are the visible rosy-red hand of God's mercy in 
which He offers the richest boons of His grace ; she teaches her 
children that a trusting, confiding hand on their part is necessary to 
secure them. Whilst she undoubtedly teaches — and I personally 
thank God for it — that in infants the Holy Spirit kindles faith by 
the Sacrament of initiation, by which they receive the grace of the 
covenant (if they receive not that, what do they receive?) she, with 
equal clearness, announces to those of riper years, that the Sacra- 
ments confer no grace on adults, unless, when offered, they receive 
them by true faith, which must exist in their hearts previously. 

Shielded thus against all misapprehension and false application, 
it will not be difficult to set forth the Lutheran views of each of 
the Sacraments separately. We of course commence with 

BAPTISM. 

This was instituted by Christ Himself, and has the promise of sal- 
vation. It makes its subject God's child — the greatest blessing of 
man on earth. It introduces him to God's covenant, and secures 



DR. WEDEKIND S ESSAY. 321 

for him all God's covenanted mercies. It is administered in the 
name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, to show not only the in- 
tense solemnity of the transaction, but to pledge us at the same 
time the Father's love, the Son's righteousness, and the Spirit's com- 
fort and communion. There is in this ordinance a deep mystery 
which transcends all human ken, and demands an unreserved, 
child-like and entire faith and confidence in the words and promise 
of Christ and His apostles. To me its profound spiritual meaning 
seems typified by the several external events that transpired at 
Christ's own baptism. It is stated that on that occasion Jesus saw 
"heaven opened;" typifying, I think, that Baptism opens to us the 
kingdom of heaven; next, the Father's voice is heard saying, "This 
is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased ;" announcing to us 
the fact that in Baptism we are sealed as the Father's dear children : 
and finally, the Spirit of God is seen, in dove-like form, to hover over 
this deeply mysterious and "all-righteousness fulfilling" transaction, 
indicating the design, that in Baptism the spirit of love, of purity, 
and of dove like innocence, shall descend into the heart of the bap- 
tized person. 

The main reason why so many pastors know not what position to 
assign to this blessed ordinance, is the confusion of ideas in the 
" Order of Salvation," and the interchange, as synonymous terms, 
of regeneration and conversion. In Baptism the former is effected, 
and the right of the latter secured. In the initiative ordinance man 
becomes God's child, and the divine life in its germinal character is 
implanted in his soul, which lies in the heart, not like a concealed 
stone, but like a good seed in the garden, or like a noble scion 
grafted on a wild stem, and not like a dead nail driven into the 
trunk. The very term, " conversion," implies that the man has 
gone from something good, and in " turning round" — which is the 
meaning of the word "conversion" — he is to go back to "that 
good thing committed to him." 

The objection here urged is, that if conversion is necessary, then 
what practical benefit is regeneration ? Answer : If he remains 
faithful in his baptismal covenant, growing " up in the nurture and 
admonition of the Lord," like John the Baptist, the baptized child 
will be "sanctified from his mother's womb." That this can be, 
no believer in the Bible, who is acquainted with the history of a 
Samuel, a John, or a Timothy, will question. That it ought to be, 



322 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

St. Paul's language, quoted above, sufficiently indicates. That it is 
not, proves nothing against God's Word, nor the doctrine of our 
Church, but only shows that there is a fearful delinquency some- 
where ; and where that is we shall see by and by. It is, alas ! but 
too true, as every pastor knows, that not all who have been bap- 
tized continue in their baptismal grace and covenant, and live as it 
becomes God's children ; yea, some live as if there were no God to 
fear and no hell to dread. They " put asunder what God has 
joined together" — Faith and Baptism. To secure salvation, both 
are necessary. " He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved ; 
he that believeth not shall be damned." If faith, therefore, is not 
added to baptism ; if the stupid theory of ex opere operato is con- 
sciously or unconsciously relied on, then unbelief will drag after it 
its own legitimate fruit — damnation. But, says the objector, if 
Faith does, the work, what use is there of Baptism? "Much every 
way." First, because God has so ordained. From this state- 
ment there can be no appeal. In reference to it, we can 
only say : " Even so, Lord, for so it seemeth good in Thy sight." 
Nothing but the baldest infidelity, or the most supercilious conceit, 
can set this fact aside. Then, too, the relation established through 
this ordinance between God and the baptized person is a most sacred 
one — that of childhood of God. Now a child that has a father can 
seek him again even if he has gone astray ; he who has a father's 
house to go to, can always return, though like the Prodigal, he "has 
gone into a far country." This is the prerogative which Baptism 
secures to God's erring child. How is it with an earthly father, 
whose prodigal son has most grievously wronged him, when that 
son, after long wanderings, returns, though in the dead hour of 
midnight, and, with tearful eye and choked voice, knocks at the 
paternal door, begging : Father, open unto me ! thy child, weary, 
naked and desolate, stands here, freezing in the cold of winter, and 
perishing with hunger and thirst in this merciless world ; — what, 
think you, would that father do? And will not our compassionate 
Father in heaven open mercy's door to His returning prodigal child, 
and thus save him from despair ? I tell you, yea, for He has made a 
covenant with him in Baptism, " well ordered in all things and 
sure ;" and though man may violate it again and again, God never. 
"He cannot deny Himself." He will continue his Father, even 
should the child at last be lost. O ! there is in this holy Sacrament, 
depth of mercy which no human plummet has ever yet sounded. 



DR. WEDEKIND S ESSAY. 323 

And what an ocean of comfort there lies in this doctrine of our 
Church for practical piety. Man's utter impotence is learned no- 
where so thoroughly as where his love nestles most warmly. A 
mother * in tears sits by the cradle of an ailing child sobbing : ' My 
darling is very ill;' but she is thrice blessed, if, when bowing be- 
fore her Maker in prayer, she can say : 'Father, Thy child is sick.' 
Or the father notices with deep sorrow and grief, how unruly passions 
and sinful desires develop themselves in his child, which he cannot 
eradicate ; but thrice happy is he when he can look up to God and 
say : ' Behold, Father, Thy child is tempted of the flesh, the world, 
and the devil ; Thou hast conquered these foes, Thou canst shield 
and succor Thy child.' The eyes of father and mother can't see 
very far, nor can their hands reach at a great distance, and when 
their child leaves the parental roof to try the slippery paths of a 
corrupt and corrupting world, they look after him with deep 
anxiety ; but how blessed are they to know that their loved one is 
accompanied by another Father, whose eye never slumbers and 
whose mighty arm is round and about him in all his wanderings. 
And when at last the father's eye breaks and the mother's hand 
grows cold, and the final struggle comes to tear their hearts loose 
from the child that stands weeping at their death-bed, how com- 
forting for them to know that He never dies " who is the true Father 
of all them that are called children." How truly poor is that 
household in which the faith in the unspeakable blessings of the 
baptismal covenant has become extinct ! How have the children 
been robbed of their holiest attire, their chief jewel ! And what 
deep anxiety and discomfort must those parents feel when their 
natural attachment for their offspring arouses their hearts' deepest 
concern for their temporal and eternal welfare ! 

Bear with me, then, brethren, if I seem unnecessarily lengthy on 
this subject. Above all others, this demands chief attention just 
now. You, as well as I, have noticed that almost every district con- 
ference in our Church is debating some aspect or other of this ordi- 
nance, indicating not only that this a living question, but that there 
is a painful unfixedness of views, as well as a general feeling after the 
truth. If this paper shall call special attention to the proper study 

1 Biichsel's " Erinnerungen" to which I am indebted for many of these 
thoughts. 



324 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

of this subject, its principal aim will be attained. I go on, there- 
fore, and say : 

That another difficulty in the way of assigning the proper posi- 
tion to this Sacrament is the inadequate conception in many minds 
of the deep depravity of the human heart. They fail to grasp the 
Bible idea of what is meant by man being " conceived in sin and 
shapen in iniquity;" that "he is unrighteous before God;" that 
he " is of the earth, earthy;" that "what is born of the flesh, is flesh;" 
that " the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint;" that this 
moral disease has infected his whole being, lying within his very 
centre like the seed of the deadly night-shade, that will grow with 
his growth, and strengthen with his strength ; and that unless 
God in His infinite mercy change that nature, it will and must 
develop into a child of wrath. Hence the blessed Saviour so ex- 
plicitly teaches, John iii. 5, "Except any one be born again of 
water and of the Spirit, he cannot see God." But now, "It is not 
the will of your heavenly Father that any of these little ones should 
perish;" therefore He meets them at the very entrance of life with 
the moral antidote to the moral disease, and that not only in a 
purely spiritual and invisible way, but also in the visible sign and 
pledge of holy Baptism. The child is thus early placed in the hands 
of the Holy Ghost as its spiritual physician. This assigns to this or- 
dinance a definite, most gracious, and most positive position. It 
makes something more of" it than a mere venerable and ancient cus- 
tom, which at most can do no harm, and which by some, indeed, is 
regarded as " being honored more in the breaph than in the observ- 
ance." We speak not unadvisedly on this subject ; nor are we to be 
considered as false accusers of brethren when we affirm that there are 
Synods in our Church, which, according to the last General Synod's 
Report, do not average two infant baptisms a year in each of their 
thirty-four congregations ! Is it supposable that in such localities 
the doctrine of the heart's moral disease, and its divine antidote, 
are fully comprehended ? Is there no urgent need of calling spe- 
cial attention to this subject ? 

But in this covenant of Baptism, there are other parties besides 
the Holy God and the feeble child. And here " The Educational 
Ideas of the Lutheran Church" come in. Parents have assumed 
the weighty responsibilities of Christian nurture in reference to 
their children; and their children have the unquestioned and un- 



DR. WEDEKIND S ESSAY. 325 

questionable claim to it. And woe be to them who neglect it ! 
They become not only "covenant breakers," but the neglecters, 
if not the destroyers, of the highest interests of their offspring. 
Here is the last answer in the baptismal formula of our Church : 
"Do you desire that this child shall be baptized into the Christian 
faith : and are you resolved to instruct hi?n carefully in the gospel of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, and to teach him to walk according to its 
holy commandments? Answer, Yes." In the baptismal covenant 
the parents have become God's messengers to these little immor- 
tals ; His co-workers for their religious training ; yea, His substi- 
tutes, doing as He would do, were He visibly present to manage 
this momentous work ! To Him, therefore, they are responsible 
for every step they take in this important matter. They are vital 
factors in this gracious plan and purpose of the Almighty. So God 
teaches; so our Church believes. Hence Luther prepared his 
Small Catechism, primarily for the family ; heading each division 
thus: " Quomodo paterfamilias (id.) suce, familioz simplicissime 
tradere debeat, ' ' But alas ! as in so many other instances, so also 
here ; there is a heaven-wide difference between precept and prac- 
tice, between plan and execution ! How many children are denied 
this wholesome spiritual food ! How many grow up, even in nom- 
inally Christian families, without prayer, without instruction, 
without the simple knowledge even that they stand in God's cove- 
nant, without ever so much as having seen a catechism until they 
are sent to the pastor for instruction ! And yet, just from such 
sources come the objections to the Church's doctrine on this subject, 
as many pastors present, as well as absent, can abundantly testify. 
But is it a wonder that the Divine purpose in this holy covenant is 
so largely neutralized, seeing the conditions from the human side, 
so recklessly neglected if not positively ignored ? Can we expect 
to "gather grapes from thorns, or figs from thistles?" Will "a 
bitter fountain send forth sweet water?" Yet this is the sad condi- 
tion in thousands of our families. 2 Of course, man cannot see what 

2 During my present course of catechetical instruction, four lads in my class, 
when questioned on this subject (they are not the children of my flock) ac- 
knowledged that they had never read two chapters in the Bible, though each 
was over fifteen years of age ! One had never read a single verse at home ! 
The other thought that perhaps they might have read from ten verses to two 
chapters, but certainly not more ! Neither of them knew whether he was bap- 
tized ! ! 



326 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

the Holy Spirit is doing all this while in the youthful heart ; how 
He is fanning the gentle flame to keep it alive, so that, as in nature, 
when the frost of winter is thawed by the warming rays and showers 
of spring, and the superincumbent ice and snow melt, and "the 
storms are over and gone," the little sprig of the planted seed 
springs forth despite the unpromising antecedents. One thing is 
sure, and we wish to score it, that no greater earthly blessing can 
come to a child than to unfold its being in the sacred precincts of a 
Christian family, where it is enfolded in the warm embrace of 
sanctified maternal love, and where its tiny hand is laid, into that of 
a pious, God-fearing father for guidance and direction. No inher- 
itance, however vast, is comparable to this. No world-wide 
renown, however brilliant, can bless a child one tithe as much as 
the simple and ineffaceable remembrance of a Christ-loving father 
and mother. Well did Richard Baxter say, that if parents would 
do their duty, more would be savingly called in the family than in 
the sanctuary. God fill our churches with such parents ! 

But in this baptismal covenant the Church as well as the family, 
has an important part to perform. She is not only the divinely ap- 
pointed almoner of God's mercies and mysteries; she is an essen-. 
tial factor in the development of the gracious purposes designed to 
be accomplished in Baptism. As an agency co-ordinate with the 
family, in this direction, she is to give " line upon line," etc., in the 
education of the lambs of the flock. To her the blessed Master 
said, through Peter: "Feed My lambs.'' What the parents are 
designed to commence, the Church is commanded to carry forward 
and complete. From the family into school ; from the school into 
Church, from the Church into heaven, is her theory. Accordingly 
the children are sent to the pastor for " instruction" in the doc- 
trines of religion and the duties of life. In no department of the 
pastor's work can he make himself more lastingly and more bene- 
ficially felt than in these hours. Here was the secret spring of that 
pietistic movement, so much lauded but so little understood, of 
Philip Jacob Spener. If conscientious and faithful in the cate- 
chetical class, the pastor will have comfort and joy in all his con- 
gregational work. At no other time and in no other place can he 
approach the heart nearer, or convey a knowledge of Christianity 
to the comprehension of the youthful mind clearer, than in the 
catechetical system of the Church. It is a shame, therefore, that 



DR. WEDEKIND S ESSAY. 3 2J 

this glorious system should have ever been suffered to degenerate 
into a mere humdrum-like perfunctory performance, resembling 
the Hindoo's praying machine placed by the stream to be turned by 
the flowing water, soulless, aimless, senseless ; or to be supplanted 
altogether by a system which, whilst it may have the glare and furor 
of a prairie fire, is as destructive too. These Educational Ideas of 
the Church, or catechetical instructions, where the meetings are 
but once a week, should extend, at least, through one whole year. 
They are, of course, preparatory to the solemn rite of Confirmation, 
which is the connecting link between the two Sacraments, or the 
bridge by which we pass from the one over to the other. Confirma- 
tion, which has come to us from the apostolic age, is a personal 
ratification of the baptismal covenant, and an individual assump- 
tion of all its conditions and responsibilities. It is followed by the 
first reception of the Lord's Supper, and unites thus in itself, as in 
the focal point of the Christian life, all the means of grace : the 
Word, through the preceding instruction; Baptism, through the 
renewal of the covenant, and the Holy Supper, through the first 
participation of it. What a day ! How glad, how sad ! How full 
of holy reminiscences ! How big with hopes and fears ! Its salu- 
tary influences are designed to extend through the whole life. 

We are now brought to consider the second Sacrament of the 
Church : 

THE LORD'S SUPPER. 

As in the initiative ordinance the divine life in the soul has its 
beginning, so the confirmative Supper is designed to nourish and 
strengthen it ; but as in the world this spiritual life is often de- 
pressed and weakened, this means of reviving it is to be frequently 
repeated. This was the case in the primitive Church, and also in 
the Reformation period. It is, therefore, a matter of deep regret 
that the un-Lutheran custom obtains so extensively throughout our 
Church, of celebrating this ordinance but once or twice, or at most 
four times a year. May the day soon come when our congregations 
will make arrangements that the Lord's table shall be spread once 
a month ! 

In this holy ordinance, instituted by Christ Himself, "on the 
night in which He was betrayed," He gives us, through the visible 
elements of bread and wine, all the blessings of the Gospel, as these 



328 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

blessings are all embodied in Himself: for He gives us Himself; 
as the words of the institution so emphatically declare : ' ' This is 
My body;" " This is My blood." It is Myself; let each one of 
you, believingly, appropriate Myself to himself 

In this Sacrament, even more than in the first, the Lutheran 
Church differs from all other Protestants, as well as from all 
Romanists. She utterly rejects the Tridentine doctrine of transub- 
stantiation ; and with equal energy and emphasis she rejects the 
mere mnemonic notions of Zwingle. She does, indeed, not ignore 
the memorial feature of this holy ordinance ; for her Lord has 
said: " Do this in remembrance of Me," and she has the utmost 
regard and reverence for His words. As the paschal lamb, eaten 
at the same table at which the holy Supper was instituted, should 
perpetuate from generation to generation the remembrance of 
Israel's wonderful deliverance from Egyptian bondage; so Jesus 
desired that His holy Supper should remind His followers through 
all time to come of their great redemption from the thralldom of 
sin and Satan through His innocent sufferings and death. Our 
Church teaches her children devoutly to call to mind Christ's agony 
in Gethsemane, His indignities at Pilate's bar, and His unutterable 
sufferings on Golgatha. They remember His sweat as it falls like 
great drops of blood to the ground ; they think of the horrible 
scourgings, the cruel mockings, and the piercing cry: "My God, 
my God, why hast Thou forsaken Me." All these things, endured 
by the Son of God for the redemption of man, pass like a living 
panorama before us as we stand or kneel around the Lord's table. 
Yes, the Lutheran Church teaches, and all her children believe, the 
memorial feature of the holy Supper. 

But with equal fervor and unquestioned confidence she teaches, 
and her children believe, every other statement made by the blessed 
Lord and His inspired apostles in reference to this holy ordinance. 
Accordingly she finds in it unspeakably more than the mere me- 
morial feature. If it be no more than a simple mnemonic rite, 
then a "crucifix" or an " Ecce Homo" painting, would much 
better accomplish that end than a piece of bread and a little wine. 
And, therefore, the Lutheran Church teaches, and her children 
believe, that the Lord's Supper is not only a visible gospel that re- 
calls to mind the most stupendous facts in the history of redemption, 
but that it carries and communicates to the humble, penitent, be- 



DR. WEDEKINDS ESSAY. 329 

lieving participant, all that it objectively sets forth, as indicated by 
the Saviour's language, "broken for you," and " shed for the re- 
mission of sin." And this she teaches, and they believe, not 
because she has fathomed, and they have encompassed, the mighty 
mystery involved in His holy ordinance, but upon the sole declara- 
tion of the blessed Lord Himself. And thus trusting with childlike 
simplicity her loving Lord, she is fully persuaded that He will not 
tantalize or deceive her. When He says, "This is my body," 
"this is my blood," "take and eat," "drink ye all of it," He 
does not offer us a myth instead. He offers us Himself, as the soul- 
food of all His followers. Hence He says, " He that eateth My 
flesh and drinketh My blood, dwelleth in Me, and I in him." "As 
the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, so he 
that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me." Language could not 
be plainer. The words and things chosen set forth this gracious, 
ennobling, soul supporting union and communion with Him. 

It requires only an entrance into, and a full realization of the cir- 
cumstances of the institution of this sacrament, to apprehend in 
some humble measure the profound purposes of its divine Author. 
He had announced to His disciples the withdrawal of His visible 
presence from them. This announcement filled them with undis- 
guised sorrow. "Their hearts were troubled." He deeply sym- 
pathized with them. "Having loved His own, He loved them unto 
the end." And to assure them of this unfailing and undiminished 
love, and setting aside all known laws of human language, He says 
to them, in the overflow of His love: Here, take Me; take My 
whole self — " My body and blood ;" feast upon Me, and let this be 
your soul-food for evermore ! 

Does any one now say, with the murmuring Jews : ' ' How can 
this man give us His flesh to eat?" We answer: Jesus never 
asserted, our Church never taught, and her children never believed, 
any such gross, Capernaitish idea or view. What we believe the 
Saviour to have taught is that, with the external signs of bread and 
wine which remain unchanged in all respects, the Lord Jesus Christ 
in a supernatural and to us incomprehensible way, communicates 
Himself with, in and under the form of bread and wine, to the be- 
lieving communicant, with all the effects of His glorious redemption 
work ; that He unites Himself mystically but really with them ; 
conformably to the teachings of the Holy Ghost, i Cor. x, 16, 
22 



33° FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

" The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of 
the blood of Christ ? The bread which we break, is it not the com- 
munion of the body of Christ?" As certainly, therefore, as we have 
in the Holy Supper real bread and real wine, not the semblance of 
bread nor the semblance of wine, so have we in it the real presence 
of Christ, and not an imaginary, inferential or mythical presence. 
Else how could the holy Apostle Paul say : " Whosoever shall eat 
this bread and drink this cup of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty 
of the body and blood of the Lord." " For he that eateth and 
drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not 
discerning the Lord's body." 

The theological and practical bearings of this Sacrament, as held 
by the Lutheran Church, are of incalculable moment. We cannot 
now even enumerate them, for this paper is already much beyond 
the prescribed limit. But incidentally it may be mentioned that 
the doctrine of the person of Christ is essentially involved in it. 
In it, too, centers the Christian's joy, comfort, hope and happiness. 
Hence he derives the full assurance of his glorious immortality. 
Here he sees, as nowhere else, that purity of heart and holiness of 
life are possible for him only as he abides in Christ, and Christ in 
him ; so that he can adopt the triumphant language of St. Paul : 
" I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me ; and the life which I 
now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who 
loved me and gave Himself for me." 

This ordinance emphasizes the doctrine of the " Communion of 
Saints" Around the sacramental board we proclaim ourselves 
members of one holy family, whose father is God and whose elder 
brother is Christ, the Lord. Hence says the Apostle Paul, "We, 
being many, are one body, for we are all partakers of that one 
bread." And as an experimental fact, it may be mentioned that 
at no other time, and on no other occasion, are Christian hearts so 
united, their sympathies so active, their interests so mutual, their 
affections so cordial, their forgivenesses so free, their criminations 
so few, and their generosities so unrestrained, as when they kneel 
around the communion altar. The sanctifying influences of this 
holy ordinance can easily be inferred, but not here discussed. 

Such, then, are the Educational and Sacramental Ideas of the 
Lutheran Church. They lead, as you perceive, not only into the 
outer courts of God's sanctuary, but into the holy of holies. They 



CLOSING REMARKS. 33 I 

kindle a divine glow and ardor which thaw all world-frost and spir- 
itual torpor that threaten incessantly to chill the life of Christ in 
the soul. Naturalists inform us that the deeper we descend into the 
earth, the warmer it becomes. How true this maxim is we cannot 
say ; for they have not gone deep enough to determine. Like 
many others of their maxims, it rests on assumption. But this we 
can positively affirm, that the deeper we go into these sacred mys- 
teries the warmer it becomes, for they enfold the very heart of 
Christ. They deliver from that legalism which keeps the believer 
in the mere vestibule of this holy sanctuary, where the winds are 
cold, coming as they do from the icy tops of Sinai, and bringing 
nothing but death and destruction. But entering by faith into this 
holy tabernacle of the Lord, we have all the riches which the 
Father's infinite love and compassion have devised for His children ; 
which the Eternal Son has procured for them by His innocent suffer- 
ings and death, and which the Holy Ghost is offering and is ready 
to make over to them. Here the table is spread with "milk and 
wine," with "marrow and fatness ;" and the invitation is : " Eat, 
O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved." 

The lateness of the hour prevented any discussion. 

Dr. Seiss moved that the hearty thanks of this Diet be extended 
to the pastor and congregation of St. Matthew's church for their 
kindness to the Diet. Adopted. 

Dr. Seiss moved that the Secretaries be directed to procure the 
papers read, and to make provision, if possible, for their publica- 
tion. Adopted. 

The subject of making provision for another Diet was then intro- 
duced as follows : 

REMARKS OF REV. J. A. SEISS, D. D. {General Council) 

Mr. President : As there is a disposition to adjourn finally to- 
night, and members are beginning to retire, I have a matter of 
business which I should like to bring forward before our numbers 
are further diminished. 

We have had a Diet. What was doubtful and uncertain a few 



332 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

days ago, has become fixed, and passed into history. We now 
have some practical idea of a free congress in the Lutheran Church. 
It is a matter of some worth that such a convention could be or- 
ganized and successfuly carried through. It is a point gained for 
our common cause. And it seems to be conceded that good has 
been accomplished by our coming together in this way. Separated 
for a decade of years, it has been a pleasant thing to see each 
other's faces, hear each other's voices, grasp each other's hands, and 
make a little comparison of views on given topics. Though not 
one in all things, the meeting has been something of an event to be 
remembered. If it has not been to the full what might have been 
desired, I have heard but one sentiment concerning it, and that is 
one of gratification and pleasure. The nature of the transactions, 
what has been read and said, the questions which have been asked 
and answered, the searchings for truth that have been evinced, and 
the patient and friendly manner in which matters of great moment 
have been presented and talked over, must serve to lift us in each 
other's esteem, to reflect credit upon our Church, to sow seeds of 
good in the minds and hearts of those in attendanc e, and to effect 
quiet plantings here and there which will grow, and bloom, and 
bring forth their fruits of blessing in after days. 

The attempt to form and carry through this Diet, was something 
of a novelty and an experiment. It involved matters of difficulty 
and delicacy. It necessarily had to be on a limited scale, embrac- 
ing only the most accessible men, to be assigned prominent parts. 
That there are many good and able men whom it would have been 
a pleasure to hear, is frankly admitted ; but a selection had to be 
made, and that selection was prudentially limited to a territory not 
exceeding 300 miles. The best was done which, under all the cir- 
cumstances, was thought most sure of making the attempt successful. 
The result has been what we may now pronounce a success. So far 
as I have learned, there is a common agreement that this Diet has 
been a good thing. 



CLOSING REMARKS. 333 

It has therefore occurred to me that it would perhaps be well, 
before finally adjourning, to give some expression, and to make 
some incipient provision, respecting a repetition, on a wider scale, 
at some future time, of what we have here had. I have thought 
that we might at least designate a committee to arrange for another 
Diet, on the same general plan as this ; leaving it to them to deter- 
mine as best they can, by conference with men in different sections 
of the Church, and by watching the indications, when, where, and 
how, it shall be held, and also to make up for it a full programme 
in advance. I would make a motion to this effect, save that I do 
not wish to press the suggestion if there is not a general sentiment 
in favor of it. To make it, only to be resisted and broken down, 
would be worse than not to have it made at all. I would, therefore, 
with the permission of the chair, very much like to have some 
informal expression of opinion on the subject ; feeling, for my own 
part, that it would be eminently proper for us, here and now, 
before separating, unitedly to take the initiative for another Diet, 
say in the course of a year or so, and thus give the impulse for a 
succession of Diets, in which to dig after a right understanding of 
the truth, for the general upbuilding of ourselves and churches in 
the knowledge of our doctrines and of each other, and of those 
strong foundations on which our cause rests. 

As there were calls from all sides that the suggestion accorded 
with the feeling of those present, it was moved by Dr. Seiss, and 
seconded by Dr. Brown, that a committee be appointed to make 
provision for another Diet. Adopted unanimously. 

After some discussion as to how the committee should be consti- 
tuted, it was finally resolved that the committee consist of Drs. 
Morris and Seiss, with power to add a third. 

Dr. Conrad moved that the thanks of the Diet be returned to the 
reporters of the city papers. Adopted. 

Dr. Brown moved that the thanks of the Diet be returned to its 
officers. Adopted. 



334 FREE LUTHERAN DIET. 

REMARKS OF REV. F. W. CONRAD, D. D. {General Synod.) 

Mr. President : Before we separate, I feel impelled to give ex- 
pression to the impressions made upon me during the sessions of 
this Diet. When it was first broached, I doubted whether it would 
be held • when I was requested, months ago, to read a paper before 
it, I consented with no little hesitancy, and when at last the time 
and place of its meeting were announced, I feared that it might 
prove a failure. But the Diet has been held and is about to ad- 
journ, and I desire to confess that my doubts and fears have been 
dispelled, and that the expectations of the most sanguine have been 
fully realized. From the evidence furnished by its proceedings and 
attendance from day to day, it must be pronounced a success, and 
I congratulate you, Mr. President, as its projector, and your worthy 
colleague, upon its character and results. 

The importance of the subjects treated and discussed ; the 
learning, research and ability displayed ; the courtesy extended ; 
the Christian spirit manifested, and the fraternal greetings ex- 
changed, reflected credit upon all who participated in it, and could 
not fail to make a favorable impression upon those who attended its 
sessions. 

Some of those present I have known many years, with others 
I have been upon the most intimate terms of friendship, and the 
privilege of meeting and taking counsel with them in this Diet, has 
been to me a source of no ordinary gratification. Notwithstanding 
the separation which left some of us in the General Synod, and led 
others into the General Council, our differences have not wholly 
schismatized our hearts, which are still bound together by the tie of 
a common ecclesiastical lineage, and a common Christian faith. 
There is yet a goodly number in both bodies, who fully realize that 
"we be brethren," and who, in obedience to the apostolic injunc- 
tion: "Let brotherly love continue," still love one another with 
pure hearts fervently. 

The Diet was a voluntary and unrepresentative assemblage of Lu- 



CLOSING REMARKS. 335 

theran ministers. Each one was at full liberty to utter his senti- 
ments, for which he alone is responsible. It was not proposed to 
present the points of difference between us. and in so far as such 
points were introduced in the discussions, they were merely inci- 
dental. Nor was it designed for the promotion of organic union 
in the Lutheran Church, and hence that subject was neither as- 
signed to a reader nor introduced into the discussions. But if 
the breaches in the walls of Zion are ever to be closed, and its 
divided parts united in "one fold" under "one Shepherd," it 
will be indispensable that the divisions now existing in the different 
Christian denominations be first healed, before a general union be- 
tween them can take place. The harmonizing of the differences 
dividing the Lutheran Church, becomes, therefore, the pre-requi- 
site to the union of the Protestant Churches, and the union of Pro- 
testantism will be the precursor of the consolidation of Christen- 
dom. 

The divisions in the Lutheran Church of America have had their 
occasions and their causes, and her union, whenever it may occur, 
will also have its occasions and causes. And while the signs in the 
ecclesiastical heavens may not augur that the "set time" for the in 
auguration of a movement to unite the different parts in this coun- 
try has come, may we not cherish the hope that the holding of this 
Diet will prove at least an occasion which may lead, in due time, to 
the adoption of such means and measures as shall, with God's bless- 
ing, eventually culminate in the organic union of the Lutheran 
Church in the United States of America ? 

A few remarks were then made by Dr. Brown. 

The President announced that a motion to adjourn was in 
order. After a long pause, the motion was at length made and 
adopted ; and the first Free Diet of the Lutheran Church in 
America, adjourned sine die after prayer by its President. 

H. E. JACOBS, 
W. M. BAUM, 

Secretaries. 



EBTDEX OF PERSONS. 



Acrelius, I., 107, no. 

Albert, L. E., 77, 171, 178, 272. 

Albert, Prince, 184. 

Alexandra, Princess, 184. 

Anstadt, P., 119. 

Arndt, J., 95, 129, 133, 254. 

Augustine, 224, 293. 

Bacon, 257. 

Baetes, W., 115. 

Eager, J. G., 43, 135. 

Baird, R., 125. 

Baker, J. C, 115. 

Bancroft, G., 113. 

Baum, W. M., 9, 10, n, 335. 

Baumgarten, 65. 

Baxter, 129, 326. 

Bergman, C. F., 113. 

Bergman, J. E., 113. 

Bernheim, G. D., 107. 

Beza, 15, 227. m 

Billican, 38. 

Bolzius, J. M., 113. 

Bossuet, 185. 

Boyer, S. R., 77. 

Brentz, 20. 

Brobst, S. K., 119. 

Brodhead, J. R., 108. 

Brown, J. A., 9, 73, 79, 80, 104, 139, 195, 

274, 284, 285, 309, 312, 333. 
Briick, Chancellor, 212. 
Brunnholtz, P., 113, 114, 276. 
Bucer, 21, 38, 211, 213, 214. 
Biichsel, 323. 
Bull, Bishop, 24. 
Bunyan, 129. 
Butler, J. G.,Sr., 114, 115, 

Calixtus, 40,95, 193. 

Calovius, 95, 245, 247. 

Calvin, 15, 18, 38, 213 sq., 227, 273, 282, 

Campanius, no. 

Capito, 211. 

Cardwell, 24. 

Carlstadt, 35, 38. 

Cassander, 40. 

23 



237, 



Castellio, 38. 

Charles V., 209, 211, 215, 239, 240, 

Chemnitz, 298, 303, 305, 307, 310. 

Chytraeus, 241. 

Coelestinus, 240. 

Cook, H. S., 177. 

Conrad, F. W., 9, 72, 99, 137, 206, 272, 309, 

3™, 333, 334- 
Conrad, V. L., 97, 99. 
Cranmer, 18, 19, 20, 23, 232. 

Dale, R. W., 264. 
D'Aubigne, 63, 232. 
Diehl, G., 10, 292, 312. 
Doddridge, 129. 
Dorer, 215. 
Dreier, 193. 
Drisius, 109. 
Duchee, 287, 288. 
Duraeus, 40. 
Dylander, no. 

Eck, 230. 
Edwards, 129. 
Eichelberger, L.. 118. 
Eliot, no. 
Emery, VV. S., 103. 
Endress, C, 115. 
Erasmus, 40, 202, 

Falkner. Justus, no, in, 112, 276. 
Farel, 15, 227. 
Fink, R. A., 102. 
Finley, Pres't, 287. 
Flacius, 95. 
Francis, J. W., 115. 
Francke, A. H., 95, 278. 
Frederick III., Elector, 15, 228. 
Frick, W. K., 163. 

Geissenhainer, F. W., Sr. , 114. 
Geissinger, D. H., 242. 
George of Brandenburg, 240. 
Gerhard, John, 55, 129, 298, 307, 310. 
Giessler, 228. 

337) 



338 



INDEX OF PERSONS. 



Goering, J., 43, 114, 115. 
Goetwater, J. E., 109. 
Graeber, J. G., 118. 
Greenwald, E., 9, 118, 242, 243. 
Grob, J., 114. 
Gronau, I. C, 113. 

Hallam, 182. 

Hamilton, 182. 

Handschuh, J. F., 113, 114, 276. 

Hard wick, 21. 

Hare, 185. 

Hartwig, J. C, 114, 158. 

Hazelius, E. L., 45, 107, 117, 119, 13 

Hedio, r.n. 

Heintzelmnnn, J. D. M., 113, 276. 

Helmuth, J. C. F., 43, 108, 113, 114, 

135. 
Henry VIII., 17. 
Henkel, P. 115. 
Herberger, 129. 
Herbst, J., 118. 
Hollazius, 247. 
Hontheim, 40. 
Hooker, 184. 
Horneius, 193. 



Inglis, 287. 

Jacobs, H. E., 9, 10, 107, 2 
John, Elector, 216, 240. 
John, Sigismund, 15, 228. 
Jonas, Justus, 18, 22, 23. 
Junius, Francis, 40. 

Kaehler, F. C. C, 292. 
King, Lord Chancellor, 65. 
Kirk, E. N., 28. 
Klinefelter, F., 77. 
Knoll, 112. 
Kocherthal, 112. 
Kostering, J. F., 
Kohler, J. 174. 
Krauth,C. P. Sr 
Krautb, C. P., g : 

238, 285, 289. 
Krotel, G. F., 10, 176, 27 
Kunze, J. C, 43, 44, 114, 
Kurtz, B. 125, 137. 
Kurtz, J, D., 43, 114, 116. 
Kurtz, J. N., 43, 113, 114, 276 
Kurtz, W., 43, in. 



123. 



,, 141. 
27, 77, 



199, 209, 233, 



5, 135*168. 



Laud, 31. 
Latermann, 193. 
Laurence, 16, 17 
Lintner, G. A., : 
Lochman, G., i: 



Lohe, 126. 

Loscher, 276, 278. 

Luther, D., 162, 165, 177. 

Luther, Dr. Martin, 16, 17, 21, 22, 35, sqq., 
63, 7 2 > 74? 94, 95, 96, 98, 180, 182. 183, 184, 
193, 201, 206 sqq., 214 sq., 220, 229 sq., 235, 
238 sqq., 248, 2,3, 292, 294, 297, 298, 303, 
304. 

Mann, W. J., 10, 96, 98, 176, 178, 237, 275, 

276, 284, 2c5, 309, 312. 
Martin, J. N., 115. 
Mason, J. M., 40. 
Megapolensis, 109. 
Melanchthon, 16, 17, ig sqq., g^, 95, 180, 193, 

196, 201, 202, 206 sqq., 213, 218. 220, 223, 

229 sq., 233, 236, 238 sq., 302, 
Melsheimer, 115. 
Miller, J, 115. 
Miller, R. J., 127. 
Miller, S., 115. 
Moehler, 185. 

Morris, J. G ,9, 10, 13, 15, 118, 283, 284. 
Miiller, H. (Germany), 129. 
Miiller, H. (America), 114. 
Miiller, J. T., 196. 
Muhlenberg, H. E., 43, 114, 115. 
Muhlenberg, H. M., 43,95, 100, in, 113, 132, 

16S, 273, 276, 277, 278, 2860 
Muhlenberg, P., 115, 289. 

Nyberg, 111. 

CEcolampadius, 34. 
Olevianus, 232. 

Pallavicini, 182. 

Palmer, 185. 

Parker, 24. 

Passavant, W. A.. 118. 

Penn, William, no, 166. 

Peters, R., 286, 287, 288, 290. 

Pfaff, 40. 

Philip of Hesse, 213, 234, 240. 

Plitt, J. K., 172. 

Pohlman, H. N., 113. 

Pontanus, 240. 

Price, N. M., 309. 

Proctor, 20. 

Pusey, 182. 

Quenstedt, 244, 247, 

Rath, J. B., 172. 
Reinmund, J. F., 107, 163. 
Repass, S. A., 9, 162. 
Reynolds, W. M., 107, 108, 
Romeyn, J. B., 40. 
Rosenmiller, D. P., 70, 96, 144. 



INDEX OF PERSONS. 



339 



Ruckert, 239. 

Rudman, no. 

Sadtler, B., 70, 176. 

Sandin, 114. 

Schaeffer, C. W., 14, 70, 107, 194, 199. 

Schaeffer, D. F. 108, 118. 

Schaeffer, F. D., 114. 

Schaff, P., 15, 20, 25, 183, 192, 227, 228, 233. 

Schaum, J, H., 113, 114, 132. 

Schlatter, 287. 

Schmid, H. 316. 

Schmidt, F., 119, 

Schmidt, J. F., 43, 113, 114, 115, 118, 135. 

Schmucker, J. G., 114, 115, 118. 

Schmucker, S. S., 107,118, 119, 127. 

Schnepf, 235. 

Schultze, E., 113, 276. 

Scriver, 129. 

Seckendorf, 22. 

Seiss, J. A., 9, 26, 162, 180, 264, 286, 331, 

333. 
Short, 23. 

Spaeth, A., 163, 176, 285. 
Spalatin, 232. 

Spener, 95, 193, 277, 280, 326. 
Sprague, W. B., 108, 114, 115. 
Sprecher, S., 99. 
Stark, 254. 
Steinhoefer, 30. 
Stoever, M. L., 107. 
Stork, C. A., 10, 160, 257. 



Stork, C. A. G., 113. 
Strebeck, G., 44, 115, 134. 
Streit, C., 43, 114. 
Strobe], P. A., 107. 

Tennant, 287. 
Tetzel, 35. 
Tischendorf, 202. 
Torkillus, R., no. 
Turretin, 40. 

Ursinus, 232. 
Valentine, M., 9, 145, 163, 
Victoria, Queen, 184. 
Vitus, Theodorus, 2^,. 



164. 



Walker, F., 113. 

Wedekind, A. C., 10, 101,313. 

Welden, C. F., 288. 

Wesley, 29, 129. 

Weyl, C, ir 9 . 

Whetstone, A. M., 206. 

Whitefield, 29, 286, 287, 290. 

Whittingham, 25. 

Wicel, 40. 

Wicksel, 281. 

Wigand, 304. 

Wildbahn, C. F., ir 4 , 136. 

Wrangle, Von, no, in, 287. 

Zinzendorf, 30, in, 232, 279. 
Zwingli, 35, sqq, 202, 211, 213, 215, 234, 273, 
282, 328. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PLACES. 



Absolution, 224, 281. 
Academies , Church, 161. 
Agnosticism , 60. 
Agreement among Christians, 81. 

among Lutherans in America, 82, 
97, 102, 105. 
Albany, N. Y., no, 276. 
Altar Fellowship, 48, 73, 76. 

Principles of, 50. 
America, Social Condition of, 278. 
Anglican Church, 

Book of Common Prayer, 16, 21, 184, 

264. 
Homilies of, 16. 

Thirty-nine Articles of, 15 sqq., 184, 202, 
227, 232. 
Apology of Augsburg Confession, 131, 324. 
Arminianisni , 30. 
Articles, Edwardine, 21 sqq. 

Thirty-nine, see Anglican Church, 
Twenty-five of, Methodists, 26, 232. 
Associate Reformed, 40. 
Augsburg Confession, 
Invariata, 282. 
Variata, 213, 231, 234, 236. 
Oldest of Modern Confessions, 85. 
Relation to CEcumenical Creeds, 207. 
Characteristics of, 206 sqq. 
Relation of Luther to, 208 sqq., 230. 

of Melanchthon to, 209 sqq., 

233- 
Correspondence concerning, 209, 237, 

238, 
Changes in, 196, 201. 
Interpretation of, 96. 
Subscription to, 86, 96, 103, 126 sq., 196, 

202, 282. 
Amer. Recension of, 128, 132. 
and the Thirty-nine Articles, 15 sqq. 
The Confession of the Reformed and 

Union Churches of Germany, 15. 
On Ministry, 292. 
On Power of Keys, 303. 

Baltimore, Md., 114. 

Baptism, Age of Subjects of, 135. 

Lutheran Doctrine of, 192, 222, 246, 
320 sqq. 



Baptist Churches, 29, 49. 

Reformed, 31. 
Bethlehem, Pa., 172, 177. 
Book of Common Prayer, 21, 23. 
Book of Concord, 131, 198, 201, 203. 

Call to the Ministry, 292 sqq., 309 sqq. 
Caivinists, 54, 55. 
Carolinas, Lutherans in,' 113, 114. 
Catechetical Instruction, 88, 130, 163, 177, 

280,325. 
Catechism, Luther's Small, 88, 96, 130, 163, 

177, 282, 325. 
Catechism, Heidelberg, 202, 232. 
Catholic, the term defined, 226. 
Catholic Church not visible, 59. 
Catholicity of Augsburg Confession, 226 sqq. 
Charleston, S. C, 115. 
Chillicothe, O., 117. 
Christianity and Science, 146. 
Church, Ancient, and Close Communion, 65. 
Church, Catholic or Invisible, 55. 
Church, Anglican, 15 sqq., 29, no, 112, 184, 
285 sqq. 

Baptist, 29. 

Calvinistic-Reformed, 29. 

Congregational, 29, 49, 189. 

Cumberland Presbyterian, 29. 

Dutch Reformed, 29. 

Evangelical Lutheran, 28. 

French Reformed, 29. 

Friends, 31. 

German Reformed, 29. 

Greek Orthodox, 28. 

Independents, 29. 

Mennonite, 29. 

Methodist, 30. 

Moravian, 30. 

Roman Catholic, 28. 
Church Order and Spirituality, 259. 
Church- Year, 135. 
"Churchmen,'" 1 42, 183 sq., 197. 
Coburg, 208. 

Colleges, Lutheran, by Nationalities, 151. 
Multiplication of, 152. 
Relation of, to Theological Seminar- 
ies, 154. 
Columbia College, 114. 



(34i) 



342 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PLACES. 



Communion, Close, 64 sqq. 

Interdenominational, 43 sqq., 71. 
Unionistic, 40. 
Communion of Saints, 259, 262, 330. 
Conferences, Pastoral, 281. 
Confession, Augsburg, see Augsburg Confes- 
sion. 
Basle, 202. 
Frencb, 202. 
Helvetic, 202. 
Netherlands, 202. 
Second Helvetic, 202. 
Tetrapolitan, 202, 211. 
Zurich, 202. 

Zvvingli's, 38, 202, 211, 234. 
Confession beforeCommunion, 43, 280 sq. 
Confession, Private, 224, 280. 
Confessional Position of Lutheran Church, 
47, 194- 
In America, 130. 
Confirmation, 88, 281, 327. 
Confutation, Romish, of Augsburg Confes- 
sion, 232, 236. 
Congregational Churches, 29, 49, 189. 
Consecration of Bishops, 289 
Concensus Repetitus, 193. 
Conservatis7n, True, 228. 

Ultra, of Rome, 34. 
Constitzition, Church, 132, 279. 
Conszibstantiation , 192, 221. 
Conversion, 321. 

Co-operation, Ecclesiastical, 90 sqq. 
Council of Trent, Decrees of, 85. 
Creed, Relation of to Faith, 203. 
Creeds (Ecumenical and Augsburg Confession, 
207, 219, 227. 

Danish Imznigration , 124. 

Decor ah, la., 126. 

Denmark, Lutheran Churches in, 288. 

Denominations , Definition of, 27. 

Classification of, 28. 
Names of, 31. 

Discrimination between, 33, 
52. 
Denominations , Evangelical, 49. 

True churches, 73. 

"Other," 74, 77. 

Christian zeal in, 74, 77, 78, 

198. 
Responsibility for, 189, 197; 

203, 204. 
in Germany and America in | 
18th Century, 278. 
Denominationalism, Origin of, 34. 
Fruits of, 41. 
Depravity, Total, 324. 



Development of Lutheran church in America, 

124. 
Dickinson College, 115, 155. 
Diet, Call for, 9. 

Members of, 11. 
Opening of, 13. 
Provision for Second, 333. 
Adjournment of, 335. 
Discipline, Church, 280. 
Divisions, Ecclesiastical, Responsiblity for 

66, 75, 198, 203, 204. 
Doctrinal Position of Lutherans in America, 

126 sq., 282. 
Doctrine and Spirituality, 248, 251. 

Unity in, essential to Church Union, 
51, 68, 17?, 177. 
Donatism, charge of, 62 sq 
Dori, Synod of, Decrees, 108. 
Dutch Lutherans, 108 sq., 124, 126, 276. 

Easton, Pa., 172. 
Ebenezer, Ga., 113, 115. 

Education, in Lutheran Church in the United 
States, 145 sq. 
, Secularization of, 149. 
True Standard of, 150. 
, and Church Growth, 156. 
, Theological, 156 sqq. 
, Female, 160. 

and the State, 161. 
, of Children of Church, 113, 114, 
116, 163, 280, 325 sq. 
Edzicationalldea of Lutheran Church 313 sqq. 
English Congregations formed, 115. 
English Language and Lutheran church, 68, 
167. 
, introduced into Church Service, 111, 
115, 167 sq., 173, 174. 
Episcopacy, Lutheran, 187. 
Episcopalians, 29, 49,93, 111,115, 127,175, 

189, 289, sqq. 
Epistle for the Day, 133, 134, 281. 
Evangelical Alliance, 41. 
Evangelical Denominations, 49. 
Exclusivencss, Charge of, 63. 

Faith, Rule of, 47, 200. 

Fallibility and Failure distinguished, 56, 199. 

F~anaticism , 34. 

Fathers of Lutheran Church in America, 276. 

Fellowship, Interdenominational, 39, 73, 76. 

, Official, Results of, 67. 
Foreign Missions, Co-operation in, 92. 
Forms, Liturgical, 257 sqq. 

, Dissimilarity in, no hindrance to 
Church Union, 89, 177. 
Uniformity of, desirable, 175. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PLACES. 



343 



Forms, in Lutheran Church in United States, 

87, 132, 27S sq., 281. 
Formula of Concord, 89, 07, 131, 202, 227, 237. 
Franklin College, 115, 151 . 
Friends, 31, 39. 

Ft. Wayne, Ind., 99, 121, 122, 138, 144. 
General Council, 80, 99, 122, 158, 286, 334. 
General Synod, 80, 117, 120, 137, 140, 141, 143, 

157. 158, 272, 324, 334. 
Getieral Synod (South), 80, 99, 122, 158. 
Georgia, Lutheran Church in, 132, 133, 135. 
German Immigration, 112, 124, 125, 151, 166, 

276. 
German Language , and English, 68, 116, 167, 

sqq. 
Germany, Social Condition of, 278. 
Germantowu, Pa., no, 114. 
Gettysburg, Pa., 114, 118, 156. 
Goettingen, University of, 277. 
Gospel fox the Day, 133, 134, 281. 
Government, Church, Forms of, 181. 
Gown, Clerical, 178. 
Greek Orthodox Church, 28, 85. 

Hagerstown, Md., 114, 117. 

Halle Records, 107 sqq., 280, 281, 287, 290. 

Halle, University of, 192, 277. 

Hanover, Pa., 115. 

Harrisburg, Pa., 114. 

Harttvick Seminary, 117, 151. 

Harvard College, 155. 

Helmstaedt, University of, 192. 

Heresy, 64. 

Herrnhuthers, 30. 

High Church Anglicans , 31, 42, 183 sq., 188, 

197. 
High Mass, 132. 
Hymn-Books, English, 134. 

Immigration, Statistics of, 124. 
Impa nation, 221. 
Independents, 29, 39. 
Indifferentism, 41, 42, 188, 277. 
Infallibility, Charge of, 55 sq., 195 sq., 199. 

Jansenists , 31. 

ye suits, 31. 

Judgment, Private, Right of, 35. 

Justification by Faith, Endangered by Union- 
ism, 48. 
, Held by all Lutherans, 86. 
, Repudiated by High Churchmen, 
184, 185. 
Renounced by False Spirituality, 
249. 
, As set forth in Augsburg Confes- 
sion, 218. 



Keys, Power of, 302. 

Laity, Education of, 162. 

, Part of, in Call of Minister, 304, 306, 

3°7« 
Lancaster, Fa., no, in, 114, 157, 172. 
Language and Faith, 68, 116. 

, in Lutheran Church in America, 68, 

116, 165 sqq , 279, 291. 
, Separation on Basis of, 168 sqq., 
171. 
Latiludinariahism , 42. 
Laying on of Hands , 297. 
Lay Reading, 127. 
Lebajion, Pa., 114, 172. 
Lebanon, O., 117. 
Leipsic, University of, 193. 
Life, as a Test of Faith, 74, 78. 
Littlestown, Pa., 136. 
Liturgical Forms, See Forms. 
Liturgies, 43-5, 132-4, 272, See also Orders of 

Service. 
Loonenbtirgh, N. Y. , 113. 
Lord y s Stepper, 36 sqq., 53 sq., 327 sqq. 

, Doctrine of, Fundamental, 53, 

98,213. 
, Lutheran Doctrine 0^71,97, 

220, 246, 328. 
, Lutheran Doctrine of, Misrep- 
resented, 180, 192, 320. 
, Doctrine of Denominations, 71, 

72. 
, Agreement concerning ,97, 102. 
, Condemning clause of Augs- 
burg Confession concerning, 
213. 
, Romish view of Augburg Con- 
fession on, 213, 236. 
, Swiss view of Augsburg Con- 
fession on, 213. 
, Analogy between, and Bap- 
tism, 76, 79. 
Losses, Annual, of Lutheran Church, 125. 
Lutheran, the Name, 70, 82. 
Lutheran Catechism in England, 18, 21. 
Lutheran Chzirch, Centre of, 28. 

, De Facto, 41 sqq, 
, De Jure, 46 sqq. 
, a Biblical Church, 47. 
, the Church of Faith, 47. 
, Confessional Position of, 47. 
, Divine Origin and Neces- 
sity of, 48. 
, Objections against, an- 
swered, 51 sqq. 
, an Educating Church, 148, 
324 sqq. 



344 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PLACES. 



Lutheran Church, not a Sect, 188, 207. 

, older than the Denomina 

tions, 189. 
, Truth fully taught by, 186. 

191. 
, a true Church, 186, 191. 
, Organization of in America, 
276. 
and Christian Union, 335. 
Lutheran Forms of Church Government, 181. 
Lutheranism not co-extensive with Christian- 
ity, 84. 
, Degrees of, 83. 
, Defined, 277. 
, of Fathers, 276 sqq. 
, Decline of, 128, 277, 315. 
, Revival of, 130, 164, 315. 
Lutherans, in America, Agreement among, 
81, 100-103. 
, and Nationality, 83. 
, Diversity among, 88. 
, Origin of, 188. 

, Relation to Martin Luther, 182 sq. 
, not guilty of Schism, 186, 194, 

197, 207. 
, not Heretics, 186, 194. 
, not a Sect, 188, 207. 
, Efforts of, to preserve External 
Unity, 186, 207. 

Maine, Lutherans in, 113. 
Marburg Articles, 208. 

, Conference, 35, 214, 215. 
Marshal, Wis., 158. 
Maryland, Lutherans in, 113 
Means of Grace, 192, 246, 277, 313. 
Mendota, III., 158. 
Mennonites, 29. 
Ministerial Sessions, 280. 
Ministerium, see Synod. 
Ministry, Divine Institution of, 87, 295 sqq. 

, Call to, 292 sqq. 

, Defined, 292. 

, Distinguished from Spiritual Priest- 
hood, 294. 

, Demission of, 309. 

, Deposition from, 309. 
Missions, 117,281. 

Montgomery county, Pa., in, 112, 114, 276. 
Montgomery county, O., 117. 
Moravians, 30, 228,232. 
MuJdenberg College, 70. 
Mystical Union, 243 sqq. 

Nantes, Edict of, 165. 
Nationality and Faith, 83 sqq. 
Newbern, N. C, 112. 
Newburgh, N. Y., 112. 



New Hanover, 113. 

New Market, Va., 117. 

New Measures, 88, 129. 

New York, Lutherans in, 108, 109, 111, 112, 

114 sq., 124,276. 
North Carolina, 115. 

Old Lutherans, 277. 

Orders of Service, 129, 133, 134. 

Ordination, 298, 302. 

, administered by Swedish pastors, in. 
Organization of Lutheran Church in America, 

132, 276, 279. 
Orthodox, Defined, 219. 

, and Spirituality, 252. 
Orthodoxism, 279, 283. 

Pennsylvania, first Lutheran Church in, no. 
, Germans in, 113. 
See Synods. 
Pennsylvania College, 107, 135, 145, 151. 
Philadelphia, Pa., 9, 10, in, 113, 114, 115, 

132, 285, 286. 
Pietism, 29, 128, 277, 279, 283. 
Piety, 313 sqq. 
Pittsburgh, Pa., 122. 
Prayer, a Spiritual Sacrifice, 293. 

, and Spirituality, 253. 

, Extemporanous, 265, 267, 273. 

, Forms of, 258, 273. See Forms and 
Orders of Service. 

, Public, of .Women, 284. 
Preaching, of the Fathers, 135, 279, 280. 
Presbyterian Form of Government, 279. 
Presbyterians,^, 49,93, 175, 189, 274. 
Press, Lutheran, in America, 118 sq. 
Priesthood, 293. 

, of Believers, 87, 294. 
Princeton College, 287, 
Providence, Pa., 113. 
Public Worship, 132, 259 sqq., 273. 
Pulpit Fellowship, 48, 50, 73, 76, in, 284 sqq. 
Pulpits, Exchange of, 284 sqq. 
Puritans and Liturgical Forms, 266 sq., 273. 

Radicalism, 34. 

, and the Sacraments, 315. 
Rationalism, 42, 277. 

, and the Sacraments, 315. 
Reading, Pa., 114, 172, 174. 
Reformed, 75, 108, 109, 128, 226, 228, 287. 

See also German, Dutch, French, 
etc. 
, Episcopalians, 32. 
, Presbyterians, 32. 
Regeneration, 321. 
Revival Movements, 115. 
Rochester, N. Y., 122. 
Rochester, Pa., 120. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PLACES. 



345 



Rock Island, III., 11&. 
Romanism in Protestantism, 59. 
Roman Catholics, 28, 77, 86, 94,149, 187 sqq., 
226, 

Sacraments, Defined, 316. 

, Design of, 317 sqq. 

, Lutheran Doctrine of, 228, 250, 

314 sqq. 
,and False Spirituality, 250. 
See also Radicalism. 
Sacramental Ideas of Lutheran Church, 

313 sqq. 
Sacrifices, Spiritual, 293. 
Salzburgers , 113. 
Savannah, Ga., 115. 
Scandinavian Immigration, 124. 
Schism, 27, 186, 190, 197, 215. 
Schools, Common, 163, 164. 

, Parochial, 164. 
Schoharie, N. Y.,112. 
Schwabach Articles, 201, 208, 234. 
Science and Christianity, 146. 
Secret Societies, 280. 
Sect and Sectarianism, 7, 33, 66, 67, 77-79, 

188, 190, 202, 207. 
Sensationalism, 254. 
Separation and Language, 169 sqq. 
Sermons of Fathers , 135 ; see Preaching. 
Smalcald Articles , 131, 232, 297, 302. 
Socinianism , 29, 31, 39, 67, 131. 

in Lutheran Church, 42. 
South Carolina, Lutherans in, 109. See Car- 

olinas, and Synods. 
Spires, Edict of, 216. 
Spirituality , True and False, 243 sqq . 
State and Education, 149, 161. 
State Universities, 149. 
St. Bartholomew, Massacre of, 165. 
Statistics, 114, it8, 121-125, 151, 156, 158. 
Subpanation, 221. 
"Substantially ," 103, 104. 
Sunday-schools , 129, 280. 
Swatara, Lutherans on the, 113." 
Sweden, Lutheran Church in, 181, 288. 
Swedish Immigration, 124. 

, Lutherans on the Delaware, no sqq. 
Symbolical Books , 126, 282. See Book of Con- 
cord. 
Syncretism, 42. 
Synod, Alleghany, 120. 
,Ansgari, 120. 
, Augsburg, 120. 
, Augustana, Swedish, 122, 126. 
, Augustana, Nor.-Danish, 122, 158. 
, Canada, 122. 
, Central Pennsylvania, 120. 



Synod, East Pennsylvania, 120. 

, English Conference of Mo., 122. 

,'English District, of Ohio, 120, 122. 

, English, O., 120, 121, 122. 

, Franckean, 99, 120, 121, 137, 140, 141. 

, Georgia, 122. 

, German Maryland, 120. 

, Hartwick, 120. 

, Holston, 122. 

, Illinois, 120, 121, 122. 

, Indiana, 122. 

, Iowa (English), 120. 

, Iowa (German), 122, 158, 277. 

, Kansas, 120. 

, Kentucky, 120. 

, Maryland, 117. 

, Melanchthon, 120, 140, 142. 

, Miami, 120. 

, Michigan, 122. 

, Minnesota, 120, 121, 122. 

, Mississippi, 122. 

, Missouri, 122, 125, 164, 277. 

, New Jersey, 120. 

, New York, 44, 114, 116, 117, 120, 122, 
126, 138. 

, North Carolina, 114, 117, 120, 122, 127. 

, North Illinois, 120. 

, North Indiana, 120. 

, Norwegian, 122, 126. 

, Ohio, 45, 117, 122, 126. 

, Olive Branch, 120. 

, Pennsylvania, 44, 45, 113, 116, 117, 120, 
122, 128, 132, 138, 144, 198. 

, Pittsburg, 120, 121, 122, 138, 143. 

, South Carolina, 45, 118, 120. 

, South-west, 120. 

, S. W. Virginia, 120, 122. 

, S. Illinois, 120. 

, Susquehanna, 120. 

, Tennessee, 117, 127. 

, Texas, 120, 121, 122. 

, Virginia, 120, 122. 

, Wartburg, 120. 

, West, 120. 

, Wisconsin, 122. 

, Wittenberg, 120. 
Synodical Conference, 80, 122, 124, 131. 
Tennessee, 114. 

Testimony of General Synod, 158. 
Tests for Fellowship , 64, 65, 71, 73, 79. 
Theological Education, 157 sqq. 
Theological Seminary , Columbus, O., 118. 

, Gettysburg, Pa., 80, 

118, 125, 158. 
, Hartwick, N. Y., 117, 

158. 
, Lexington, S. C, 118. 



346 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS AND PLACES. 



Theological Seminary, Newberry, S. C, 118. 

, Philadelphia, Pa., 25, 
"5, 173,276. 

, Salem, Va., 118. 
Torgau Articles, 208. 
Tractarians, 42, 183 sq., 188, 197. 
Tradition and Liturgies, 257. 
Transubstantiation , 192, 328. 
Trinity, Doctrine of, 180. 
Tulpehocken, Lutherans on, 113. 

Unionism, 34, 39 sqq., 94, 188, 277. 
Union Prayer Meetings, 41. 

Revivals, 41. 

Sunday-schools, 41. 

Tract, 41. 
Universalism, 42. 
University, a Lutheran, 93. 
University of Pennsylvania, 114, 115. 



Unity, Pre-requisites to, 172. 
Urlsperger Records, 107. 
Virginia, Lutherans in, 113, 116. 
West Virginia, 114. 
Wilmington, Del., 114. 
Winchester, Va., 114. 

Wittenberg, Formula Concordiae, 214, 215, 
235- 
, University of, 148, 193, 305. 
Worms, Edict of, 215. 

Worship, in Lutheran Church, in United 
States, 87, 132, 273 sqq , 281. 
, Liturgical Forms in, 257 sqq., 273 sq. 
, Uniformity of, 87, 170, 175. See 
Public Worship. 
York, Pa., no, 114, 138, 143, 144. 
Young Men's Christian Associations, 41. 
Zwinglians, 54, 270. 



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address on request. 

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751 Broadway, 3ST. Y. 



BY THE 

AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 



WHAT WE SAY: 



Our Sheets are printed from the best plates abroad. The Berean Question Book for 
1878 adopts the references of our "Large Print Edition," in preference to any other. 

Our Helps are more complete, and more useful for the teacher, than any other issued, so 
far as we know. 

Our Maps are all new, and brought down to the latest authorities. 

Our Levant Bindings, unsurpassed by any in the world, are all full flexible, and will 
open so the sides of the back will touch without injuring them. We invite critical comparison 
and examination. 

Our Prices are as low as books honestly made can be sold. 

Our Prices are uniform, and we do not make a discount to any one. 



WHAT THEY SAY 



F. L. Hitchcock, Esq., Scranton, Pa., says, " The print, the paper, the helps, the 
maps, the tables — including more than any other edition I ever saw — and the binding, all 
are grand." 

National Sunday School Teacher, Chicago. " For longpatient, conscientious study, 
it will afford just the help that is needed, and is worth double the same priced ' Bagster.' " 

The Sunday School Times. " It is truly a good thing done, and worthy the name 
given it — a Sunday school teacher's special edition of God's word." 

The Examiner and Chronicle, New York. "Before all others we place the 
' Teacher's Bible ' by the Tract Society." 

The Commercial Advertiser, New York, says, " The Tract Society has the finest 
bindery in the country. Its editions of the Teacher's and other Bibles, bound in Levant 
morocco, and sewed with silk, are the best specimens of binding to be found m either Europe 
or America." 

Rev. Dr. J. H. Vincent, of New York. " We prefer the Teacher's Bible to every 
other. It is published by the American Tract Society." 

John B. Smith, of Hartford, Conn. "I made an even exchange of anew $14 Bagster's 
Bible for your '.Large Print ' Bible, mainly because the type of yours was so much better. I 
like the binding, the paper, the marginal references, and the helps better in yours." 

Rev. J. W. Willmarth, in the Baptist Teacher, closes a long article on Teacher's 
Bibles, as follows : " My conclusion is that the American Tract Society have made a better 
Bible than Bagster's. I do conscientiously commend their Teacher's Bible as the best to be 
had, and advise our teachers to buy it in preference to all others." 

SPECIMEN PAGES sent .free to any address, and all inquiries gladly 
answered. The American Tract Society has a very large list of first-class books, suitable 
for Sabbath School Libraries. Schools will do well to see our catalogue, and stock when 
getting new Books. 

CATALOGUES FREE. 

Address H. N". THISSELL, 

3STo. 1512 Chestnut St., Philadelphia, 

District Secretary, American Tract Society. 



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.jiLKS About India 



BOYS AND GIRLS 



Rev. A. D. ROWE, M. S„ 

MISSIONARY TO INDIA, OF THE " CHILDREN'S MISSIONARY 
SOCIETY "OF THE LUTHERAN CHURCH. 




PHILADELPHIA. 

LUTHERAN PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

42 NORTH NINTH STREET. 
1878. 



1855. 1878. 

LUTHERAN 

Publication Society, 

NO. 42 NORTH NINTH STREET 
PHILADELPHIA. 



J. K. SHRYOCK, - - Superintendent. 



PUBLISHERS OF 



Lutheran Books, Church and Sunday-school Requisites, The 
Fatherland Series, etc., etc. 



Augsburg Teacher.— Monthly. 

33 Cents per Year. Postage prepaid. 



Lutheran Sunday-school Herald. 

ioo Copies, Monthly, $13.00 per Year. Postage prepaid. 



Augsburg Lesson Leaves. 

100 Copies, Monthly, $g.oo per Year. Postage prepaid. 



Augsburg Primary Lesson Leaves. 

TOO Copies, Monthly ', $q.oo per Year. Postage prepaid. 



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